Posted on: Friday, April 29, 2005
Astronomy by the numbers
| • | What are the odds of Earth's cataclysmic end? |
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| Embryonic stars form in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy of the Milky Way.
NASAâs Hubble Space Telescope |
Google hits for the word "astronomy"
13 billion years
Time since Big Bang
5 1/2 billion years
Time until the sun dies
400 years
Time since the telescope was invented
1 million
Asteroids within Jupiter's orbit
100,000
Asteroids on dangerous orbits to Earth and of a size that could wipe out a city
800 million trillion
Atoms in a cubic inch of air
20
Atoms in a cubic inch of interstellar space
-450 F
Temperature in space:
27,000,000 F
Temperature in the center of the sun:
200 billion
Stars in our galaxy
8 trillion
Dollars in the U.S. national debt
1
Planets known to harbor life
200,000
Frequent-flier miles for a free round-the-world trip
240,000
Miles from Earth a human has traveled
8 billion
Miles from Earth an unmanned spacecraft has traveled
26 trillion
Miles to the nearest star (apart from the sun)
17 million trillion
Miles to the Andromeda galaxy
Source: Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i
