Try It At Home: Cosmic Distance Scale
- By Maggie Masetti
- December 19, 2011
- 2 Comments
Have you ever wondering why we aren’t visiting the nearest stars? Or why there are no photos of our galaxy from the outside? The short answer is that the Universe is really big. So big that even the things closest to us are really far away.
Here is a little web activity you can try if you want to explore just how big the Universe is by traveling virtually outward. Instead of using scientific notation, we’ll just keep adding on more zeros to the number of kilometers we are traveling. You can see they will really start to add up!
-> Visit the Cosmic Distance Scale! <-
Here is a screencap of your first stop, Earth!
Can the option to use miles rather than kilometers be added.
It probably could – but I think it might clutter up the graphics and the message. Especially because in science the metric system is what is most commonly used. But I will definitely think about it! thanks!