Um.... you were saying?

Yeah, it's been a good long while. The Headmaster figures that about one year between posts is what the people want.

Here is a video from a series you can find on Youtube called "The Sagan Series". This is the third installment. It is narration by Carl Sagan from the documentary "The Pale Blue Dot", put to music and video. The Headmaster was so moved by this video that he has incorporated the entire series (and it's companion "The Feynman Series") into the Academy's science curriculum.

Before watching the video, the Headmaster feels it is important to frame it into the proper persective by recalling some facts about our universe.

The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second, or approx. 671 million miles per hour.

- at that speed, it takes a little more than one second to reach the moon from earth
- at that speed, it takes 8.3 minutes to reach the sun from earth
- at that speed, it takes about 6 hours to travel from one end of our solar system to the other (from the sun all the way out to its furthest planet Pluto)

Now, consider that there are more than 400 billion other suns in our Milky Way galaxy, each with their own solar systems.

- at the speed of light, it takes 100,000 years to travel the length of our Milky Way galaxy
- at the speed of light, it takes 2.5 million years to travel from our Milky Way galaxy to our close neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy

Now, consider that there are more than 400 billion other galaxies in the universe.


Enjoy...