Light-Years

Space....the final frontier. Sorry, I couldn't resist. I have been a big sci-fi fan -- particularly of Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 for years now. This all began when I was a youngster. It seems that most of the books I read were about the subject of astronomy. In fact, I have never outlived my love of astronomy. Most may not care about this subject, but there may be a few astronomy fans out there who will enjoy the "space" portion of the blog. I did say astronomy -- not astrology; I like to look at the stars, not try to read them :-). Besides, we know what the scriptures teach about astrology, divination, etc.
One of the most fascinating concepts about astronomy is the time frame called "the light-year", which is probably familiar to one degree or another. A light-year is the amount of time it takes for light to travel in a year's time, based on a 365.25 day per year calendar, at 186,000 miles per second or approximately 6 trillion miles. This is mind-boggling, but it gets worse. It would take a little over 4 light-years just to travel to the nearest star. This is impossible for us, but for those in the sci-fi universe it has already been conquered by such concepts as "warp drive" where "starships" are able to travel at "light speed" and therefore navigate around the galaxy with relative ease. It would take four years just to travel to the planet Mars at current earth space travelling speeds. (Although scientists are working on this concept. The biggest problem with travelling to Mars is keeping the human body healthy and intact for such a long period in a weightless environment :-).
What is amazing is when we consider the light-year against the vastness of space. The light that we recieve from the sun is 5 minutes old because it has had to travel 93 million miles. The light that we recieve from distant stars can be hundreds or even thousands of years old. We may still be receiving the light from some stars that burned out ages ago. It would take hundreds and even thousands of light-years just to travel across our own galaxy. Travelling to another galaxy? Millions and even billions of light-years. This all prompts me to wonder "just how big is the universe?" One of the questions I am going to ask the Lord someday.
We use "light years" in such expressions as -- "the two sides are light-years apart". Considering what we know about the concept of the light-year, this is a large gap, indeed.

Don