According to scientists, there are around 2 lakh crores of galaxies in our visible universe. The galaxy we live in is known as the Milky Way. It is claimed to contain 25 to 40 thousand crores of stars, each of which is a solar system in itself.
Let us have a look at our solar system. Our star is known as the Sun, and it includes eight planets, moons, asteroids, and dwarf planets. Then a genuine question arises in our mind how big is our solar system?
Consider the sun to be the starting point for our solar system. The distance between the earth and the sun is now about 15 crore kilometers (i.e. one astronomical unit).
The time it takes for a light beam to travel from our sun to the closest planet, Mercury, is 3 minutes. The journey to Venus requires a duration of 6 minutes. The duration for the Sun's light to travel from the Sun to Earth is 8 minutes and 20 seconds. The duration of the journey to Mars is 13 minutes. It takes a duration of 15 minutes for the light to travel through the whole asteroid belt. The sunlight takes around 43 minutes to reach Jupiter. The duration for sunlight to travel from the Sun to Uranus is 2 hours and 40 minutes. The journey to Neptune takes a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes. When considering the planet Pluto's location in the Kuiper Belt, it takes a duration of 5 hours and 30 minutes for the Sun's light to travel and reach that destination.
The Kuiper Belt is a huge area of the outer solar system located beyond Neptune's orbit. The Kuiper Belt is named after Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who hypothesized its presence in the 1950s, and resembles a massive, doughnut-shaped disk made up of icy bodies, dwarf planets, and other small celestial bodies. The light takes around 1 hour and 10 minutes to traverse this quipper belt. We can reach interstellar space after traveling through the Sun's heliosphere for almost 12 hours. However, the adventure of our solar system does not finish here.
The outer portion of the solar system is called the Oort cloud. It takes about a year for sunlight to get over the Oort cloud. Proxima Centauri, located around 4.26 light years from the Sun, is the nearest star to our solar system. The Oort Cloud is believed to cover a distance a quarter of this distance, making it even farther than one light year. According to many scientists, our Sun's gravitational reach might extend beyond two light years. And after that, obviously, the solar system of Proxima Centauri will take place. This means that to get out of our solar system, we will literally have to enter another solar system.
(It may be claimed that Voyager 1 will enter the Oort cloud after 300 years. It will take at least 30,000 years to traverse the Oort cloud. The Parker Solar Probe is currently the fastest object created by human beings. It travels at a speed of around 430 kilometers per second. Now, if we attempt to reach Proxima Centauri, it will take at least 70,000 years.)
No comments:
Post a Comment