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As shipbrokers, shipowners and charterers we fix ships to far away places, sometimes to destinations 10/12.000 miles away. As the Earth and its Oceans are part of this vast Universe, so we humans are part of it. We are living on what the Astronomer Carl Sagan called "This Pale Blue Dot". In relation to the Universe our good mother Earth is less than a speck of dust in the vastness of the Cosmos. So to keep our humility and put our place in the universe in perspective I thought I state some universal distances everyone should be familiar with.

The Astronomical Unit, the light year, and the Parsec are the measurements used to estimate the distances between various points in the universe. These and other monstrous measurements offered by today's astronomers sound so terrifyingly huge that the mind resists them, convinced that they are incomprehensible.The measures aren't hard to understand, though. They offer us a concept of how vast the universe is, as well as a healthy appreciation of size. The Astronomical Unit (A.U.) is the smallest - the distance between the Earth and the Sun, which can be measured in miles (93 million miles) or in kilometers (150,000,000 km). The Astronomical Unit is useful for measuring distances in our Solar System.

THUMB-SKETCH OF THE UNIVERSE

Description Distance from the Sun Distance on Your Chart

Needed to Accommodate

This Scale:

(1 A.U. = 1" and 1 ly = 1 mile)

The Earth A.U. 1 1 Thumb width or 1 inch

Miles: 93 million

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Pluto, the farthest A.U. 29 29 inches

Planet from the Sun Miles: 2.7 billion

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Distance light travels A.U. 63.310 1 Mile

in one year Light Years: 1

Miles: 6 trillion (5.88)

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1 parsec: the distance A.U. 200.000 3.2 Miles

light travels in 3.2 years Light Years: 3.2

Miles: 19 trillion

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Alpha Centauri, A.U. 270.000 4.2 Miles

our nearest star Light Years: 4.2

Miles:25 trillion

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Rigel, a star in the A.U. 57 million 900 miles

constellation Orion Light Years: 900

Miles: 5.25 quadrillion

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M13 in Hercules one A.U. 1.7 billion 26,700 Miles*

of the farthest star Light Years: 26,700

groups visible to the Miles: 100 quadrillion

naked eye in N. Hemis-

sphere

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The center of our A.U. 2.9 billion 68,000 Miles

Galaxy Light Years: 68,000

Miles: 190 quadrillion

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Nearest observed A.U. 6.8 billion 75,000 Miles

galaxies Light Years: 75,000

Miles: 450 quadrillion

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Andromeda, our A.U. 140 billion 2.2 million miles**

nearest full size Light Years: 2.2 million

galaxy Miles: 1.3 x 10 squared

by 19

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Nearest known A.U. 63 trillion 1 billion miles

Quasar Light Years: 1 billion

Miles: 6 x 10 squared

by 21

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Most distant Quasars A.U. 945 trillion 14 billion miles

Light years: 14 billion

Miles: 9 x 10 squared

by 22

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* Your chart must now be long enough to circle the Earth.

** Your chart must now be 10 times longer than the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

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Makes you shudder and humble, doesn't it?

age of the image as well as its distance - the light from an object a light year away has taken a year to reach us, so you are seeing it as it was a year ago. The years you see into an object's past are numbered by the distance from you in light years. When you look at Rigel, a star in the constellation Orion, for example, which is 900 light years away, the image you see is 900 years old. Astronomers staring deep into the universe, are looking billions of years into the past.

But how does the universe measure up? As it happens, there are almost the same number of inches in a mile (63,360) as there are Astronomical Units in a light year (63,310). An inch is traditionally the width of a thumb. If you make your thumb represent 1 Astronomical Unit (A.U.) the distance between the Earth and the Sun, (or 93 million miles), you can use the following chart to chart the universe. The A.U. figures given in the chart represent how many times farther the distance is than that between the Earth and the Sun.

Before you study the thumb-sketch chart of the universe consider that the Earth orbits an insignificant star in the outer reaches of our Milky Way Galaxy, when compared with the super giant star "Betelgeuse" which has a mass 24 million times that of our Sun and a diameter of 440 million kilometer (Distance Earth - Sun = 150 million kilometers). Such a massive star destroys our comprehension of the size of an object. But one can try to make a comparison.

If you put "Betelgeuse" in the center of our solar system, our Sun would be in the center of "Betelgeuse" and Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt would all orbit INSIDE the hull of Betelgeuse. One can only guess how many planets, if any, orbit "Betelgeuse" - hundreds? Assuming "Betelgeuse" has hundreds of planets, or even thousands? How many developed into life-giving planets?

Although I'm a firm believer that life has sprung up on countless of thousands of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy (with its 200 billion stars) and in the other billions of Galaxies that inhibit the universe, I am also convinced, as I said above, no intelligent civilization has been able to develop propulsion that can attain light speed. Consider: It took "Voyager II" (launched August 20th, 1978) over 25 years just to pass the orbit of "Pluto", all the while travelling at 25,000 mph/40,327 kmh. "Voyager II" is now eternally zooming through deep space and it might be millions or billions of years before it will make contact with another heavenly body.

Our current rocket technology could be compared to a sloth and a Saturn rocket, whereby the Saturn represents the speed of light and the sloth the speed of our current rocket speeds.

Here is an other example: The twin stars of "Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri" are only 4.2 light years from Earth (the closest stars to our Sun), yet with current propulsion technology it would take a space ship 113,200 earth years just to reach them. But why make the 226,400 years round trip only to discover these stars have no orbiting planets or if they have, none are life-giving?

All stars within 800 light years from our Sun (light from the Sun reaches Earth in 8 minutes) is called the "Immediate Neighborhood." - Well, "Betelgeuse" is one of our immediate neighbors. It's only 190 light years from Earth. However, if Betelgeuse blew up last week we will only know it in 190 years!!!

Happy Alien Hunting

Our Sun has reached.its half-life of 4 billion years, but long before in about 1.5 billion years she will expand to what is known as a super giant Red Dwarf.

First swallowing Mercury (then Venus, Earth and Mars) by which time all life on Earth will have ceased to exist. In fact by the time she has swallowed Mercury all of the Earth's Oceans, Lakes and Rivers will have been vaporized through temperatures reaching 296 degrees F. Consequently all life will have ceased to exist long before this occurrence. There may be a God out there, but there is no way He can stop this cataclysmic event which, through the Universes' eternal evolution, has repeated itself millions, even billions of times since the birth of the Universe. But me worry? Nah, I'm convinced mankind will have extinguished herself l o n g before we're fried by our Mother Star.

Let me say right from the outset that I'm a firm believer that the Universe is teeming with some kinds of live forms. Consider: The majority of the world's astronomers have accepted the notion that the observable Universe contains at least 200 billion Galaxies each stuffed with 100-150 billion stars.which in turn are circled by trillions of planets. All that is needed for a planet to evolve with life is that it is within the life zone of the Star, like Earth, i.e., not too close for its water or liquids to vaporize, like Venus, and not too far out to be frozen solid, like Pluto.

But I'm also a firm believer no space civilization, no matter how intelligent, has been able to develop propulsion that can attain the speed of light. And let's be clear about it, speed of light is the non plus ultra for interstellar travel.

Radio signals from Mars reach us in 8 minutes, yet contemplated manned space flights to Mars will take in excess of 2 years for the round trip. Therefore I have to conclude that no aliens have ever visited or ever will visit Earth. Anyway why should they? With trillions and trillions of planets to choose from why would they want to visit this small planet, even if they had light speed propulsion??