Night Sky Photography -- 11-29-2022 -- Mars Closest To The Earth Before Opposition

Good even fellow stargazers!

About every 26 months, our closest neighboring planet, Mars, reaches its opposition to Earth -- the moment that Earth is directly between a planet and the Sun. This also puts the Red Planet closer to our Earth in its orbit, making it glow slightly brighter as it approaches.

On the evening of Tuesday, November 29th and early morning of Wednesday, November 30th, Mars was at its closest to the Earth during this transition towards opposition. At its closest approach this year, Mars was about 51 million miles (or 4.5 light-minutes) from the Earth.

Right now Mars is slightly brighter now than Sirius, the night sky’s brightest star, and it’s noticeably red-orange in color. Mars will continue to increase in brightness until its opposition on the night of December 7th - 8th, then will begin fading by the end of the month.

Mars is currently located inside the Constellation Taurus The Bull and will be for most of this month. Aldebaran, the brightest star of Taurus (also known as the "Eye of the Bull") also shares a slightly reddish color, meaning that there are two bright red evening "stars" in our night sky this month.

The following are the photos I took of Mars at its current location in the night sky compared to the brightest stars near it, as well as the Constellations Orion The Hunter and Taurus The Bull.

Hopefully I'll be able to capture a good image of our little red neighbor the night of its opposition, which won't occur again for another 26 months in January of 2025.

Gamecocks Win The 2022 Palmetto Bowl -- FINALLY!

For the first time since 2013, the South Carolina Gamecocks beat their NCAA football rivals, the Clemson Tigers -- nationally ranked No. 8 in the country -- 31-30 at Memorial Stadium (aka Death Valley) in Clemson, South Carolina on Saturday, November 26, 2022, ending an eight year losing streak in the two school's annual rivalry game (nicknamed the Palmetto Bowl).

Needless to say, as a life-long American college football fan, and a diehard fan of the team my Grandfather Billy (God rest his soul!) got me interested in as a young kid, I was more than happy to witness this victory for my favorite college football team over their nationally ranked interstate rival.

Congratulations University of South Carolina and to your football players for a wonderful game and even better win that was a long time coming! Go Cocks!

Roses Blooming in November?!

Novembers here in South Carolina's upstate can be a bit weird sometimes to say the least.

Some of us here in the Carolinas, especially in the Piedmont region, love to joke that climate here in October and November with its varying degrees of temperature and weather go like this: winter in the early morning, spring by about noon, summer in the afternoons, and finally fall by evening.

Some days autumn here can feel like fall, with cool evenings and cold nights in the lower 30s F and even upper 20s F. Other days the temperatures can rise to as high as the lower 70s F and even to about the lower 80s F during the day, almost spring-like -- brief spells of Indian summer.

Certainly the weather itself can be a major factor since November is the last official month of hurricane season in the North Atlantic, with warm tropical air off the ocean and cool Arctic air from the north mixing to form a strange mess for us down her in Dixie.

So it's no surprise that the recent Category 1 Hurricane Nicole brought some steady rain and warm temperatures to my corner of South Carolina last weekend.

This morning, before it became cloudy and cold outside, I went outside to capture a photo of a beautiful green Carolina Anole lizard on my bedroom window that was enjoying the sunshine. I'd seen him, or one like him, earlier this summer and they are year round durable little critters.

Hey neighbor, just hanging around.

My rosebush sits just beside that particular window and I was not really surprised to find that the poisonous blue berries of the Virginia Creeper plant mixed in with my rosebush were already out. That's not too uncommon this time of year and the red and brown Cardinals and other birds enjoy them. As you can also see, the leaves on the plants themselves are still very much green, despite the trees starting to lose their foliage for the coming winter.

What was a surprise is what that brief spell of warm temperatures did for my yard...it helped my soon-to-be-hibernating rose bush to blossom at least one beautiful red rose and one poor little bud that I fear will not survive the coming cold weather this week.

Here are the photos I took of them.

Virginia Creeper plant berries mixed in with my rosebush.
These are a bit more common for this time of year.

With the temperatures expected to fall back into "autumn norms" and cool down, these survivors probably won't be around by next week, but I plan to enjoy them for as long as they are around until their brothers and sisters bloom in earnest next springtime.

Southern Fried Nostalgia & Fandom: Hey Arnold! Episode Review -- Veterans Day (1999)

November 11th is Veterans Day here in the United States, a federal holiday honoring those U.S. military veterans who honorably served in America's armed forces.

It also happens to be the name of a special half-hour episode of the Hey Arnold! animated series (season 4, episode 71) written by Hey Arnold! show writer Steve Viksten and directed by Tim Parsons (storyboard) and Christine Kolosov (animation) respectively. It originally aired on Saturday, November 6, 1999.

Classic animated television series shows like What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? -- another favorite of mine which I covered in a previous blog post -- have explored those who fell in military service and remembering their sacrifices, but the Hey Arnold! Veterans Day episode is one of the very few animated stories that actually deals with the subject of military veterans and their experiences.

Its also one of my personal favorite special episodes of the series for just that reason and why I'm making it the subject of today's blog post.

The Story

It's Veterans Day weekend and Arnold and Gerald are having trouble deciding how to spend their extra day off from school.

At dinner that night at the Sunset Arms Boarding House, Arnold's Grandpa, Phil, wants to tell his story of how he fought during the Battle of the Bulge and helped defeat the Nazis in World War II, only to be met with disinterest -- largely because he's known to tell some pretty tall tales and stretch the truth more than a little bit.

This annoys Phil and he sadly goes to eat his dessert, only to discover it missing having been stolen by one of the boarders, Oscar.

Phil takes Arnold to nearby Slausen's Ice Cream Shop where they run into Gerald and his father, Martin. While Arnold and Gerald play a video game, Phil tells Martin about how no one wanted to listen to his story. Martin sympathizes, having served in the Vietnam War and never getting to tell anyone about his own experiences. They lament that everyone in Hillwood just treats Veterans Day as a day off from school and work.

Then, realizing that Washington, D.C. is just a short drive away, they decide to take the boys on a paternal-bonding trip to the nation's capitol to teach them the real meaning of the holiday and tell their war stories. Gerald is excited to hear about his dad's experiences while Arnold thinks his grandpa will just tell more tall tales, but still excited over the idea of the trip.

The next day the four set out on the drive to Washington, D.C. and the two older men tell their stories.

Phil goes first and relates his experience during the Battle of the Bulge where he served as a private and spent most of his time apparently on KP duty peeling potatoes. Phil was then sent under orders to dump some spoiled cans of Cham (a play on Spam), he got lost forcing him to spend the night at a farmhouse -- and apparently getting some uh, late-night companionship with one of the farmer's daughters in the barn (a story which Martin thankfully interjects in and tells Phil to skip over in front of the boys). Phil, realizing that maybe that part of the story isn't appropriate for a pair of nine-year-olds to hear, quickly skips ahead simply stating, "The next day I woke up feeling like a million bucks."

Yeah, that's 90s cartoons for y'all.

The next day after leaving the farmhouse and a weepy young woman waving him goodbye, Phil's truck blew a tire. He then initially tells a typically over-the-top story involving his single-handedly defeating Adolf Hitler in a hilarious slapstick fistfight that included a classic Three Stooges eye-poke and giving the goofy-mustached SOB a super wedgie, but Arnold calls him out on making that part up.

Hey Arnold, it was funny dude... just chill.

Phil relents and then tells them that he was actually captured by an entire German regiment. Upon discovering the food supplies, he managed to convince them -- through a good bit of reverse psychology -- that the cans of Cham were regular provisions which the enemy then consumes. The Nazi regiment then falls ill with violent food poisoning, taking them out of commission and creating a breach in the enemy lines. The Allies managed to get their troops through the breach and it was vital to helping them win the battle and end the war....or so Arnold's Grandpa claims, concluding his tall tale.

Next Martin tells his story and Gerald is eager to hear if his experience was just as exciting. However, Gerald is disappointed to learn that his dad, due to being sick with the flu during most of basic training, mostly just worked as a desk clerk and saw very little actual combat. The closest he got to combat was driving through an area where a battle had taken place and finding a man only named Private Miller in the episode who was bleeding. Martin used some files to make a bandage for him and went on his way.

After stopping over at a motel later that night, Arnold is convinced that Phil's story was all made up while Gerald dismisses his dad's job as a paper pusher, something Mr. Johanssen is sad to overhear.

The group makes it to Washington, D.C. the next day and visits several monuments -- among them Arlington National Cemetery -- and watches the Veterans Day parade together.

Phil and Arnold wonder off on their own in the woods so Phil can show Arnold something. He shows Arnold a monument of him that confirms his story. Arnold is happy to learn his Grandpa really was a hero and he can (kinda) tell a mostly honest story.

Meanwhile, Martin and Gerald are at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Martin tells Gerald he knows that Gerald's disappointed that he wasn't a big war hero, but Gerald says it's okay and he knows his dad did his best.

Right after this, they are approached by the same Private Miller that Martin met back in Vietnam. It turns out that Miller was bleeding to death when Martin came across him and his emergency first-aid ultimately ended up saving his life. Private Miller goes on to explain that he's been waiting twenty years to personally thank him for saving his life, which Martin is very touched by.

Martin introduces Gerald to Private Miller, who claims that Gerald's dad is a real hero. Private Miller then introduces his own family (his wife and their son and daughter) to Martin and Gerald. Private Miller's wife and daughter seem very moved while his son salutes Gerald's dad. Both families then watch the big fireworks presentation as the episode concludes.


My Thoughts

The message in this episode is a powerful one that does not glorify war, but rather the service of the individual soldier. Both stories show that no job is unimportant and that the definition of a "hero" means quite different things for every person.

"Being a veteran’s not about carrying a weapon or fighting in battles," Martin explains to Gerald. "It’s about service to your country, and there’s a lot of ways you can serve."

As always, the creators and writers for the series Hey Arnold! pulled off a powerful message with just enough humor mixed in with the dramatic elements. Y'all should definitely check this episode out, especially today.

Happy U.S. Veterans Day Today, Y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 11-08-2022 -- Uranus Near Opposition During Full Beaver Blood Moon

Good morning, fellow stargazers!

Late last night and very early this morning, with blessedly clear skies, I was able to capture some really outstanding photos of the November Full Moon and the distant planet Uranus both before and during the last full Lunar Eclipse visible in North America until March 23-24, 2024.

As many of y'all might recall from my previous night sky blog post in May during the Full Flower Blood Moon of 2022, I explained in detail about how a Lunar Eclipse happened when our lovely Luna travels inside the Earth's shadow between our planet and the Sun.

There are two parts to the Earth's shadow: the penumbra (the lighter part) and the umbra (the darker part).

This Lunar Eclipse took place during the November Full Moon in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 8, 2022. The November Full Moon is known as the Full Beaver Moon in the Northern Hemisphere, making this the Full Beaver Blood Moon.

The moon reached full total eclipse inside the Earth's umbra shadow at about 5:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) and lasted about 85 minutes. Here in South Carolina, the full totality of the Lunar Eclipse occurred about an hour before moonset in the west.

The overall Lunar Eclipse took about 5 hours and 53 minutes in total.

The following are photos I took of the Full Beaver Blood Moon between 5:18 a.m. and 5:35 a.m. EST.

The gas giant planet, Uranus, seventh planet of our Solar System, is just barely visible at full magnification about 2 degrees above and to the left of Luna. As you can see in both photos, Uranus appears as a barely visible 5.6 magnitude star alongside the Full Beaver Blood Moon both before and during the Lunar Eclipse.

Uranus appears more visible with Luna in the Earth's shadow blocking out the moonlight, although even then spotting the planet would require the aid of a good camera lens, or pair of binoculars.

Orbiting at 1.8 billion miles (or 2.9 billion kilometers) from the Sun at its closest and 1.89 billion miles (or 3 billion km) away at its farthest, Uranus takes about 84 Earth years to complete one orbit around the Sun.

Right now Uranus is at its opposition -- its closest approach to Earth in its orbit around the Sun -- at about 1.6 billion miles (or 2.6 billion km) distance, or about 155 light-minutes from Earth.

Opposition is actually one of the best time of year to visibly see our Solar System's outer planets. From now until Thursday, December 1, 2022, Uranus will be at its brightest and can be seen just to the east of the Pleiades Star Cluster. Tonight (November 8-9th) the Waning Gibbous Moon will lie between both in the sky dome.

The planet will remain visible in the evening sky through March of 2023, although after this month it will begin to dim just a little so you have to know exactly where to look. Here's a link to a really good sight to help y'all with that. 

My First Real Kiss (Or The First Time I Played Tonsil Hockey) -- A Tale Of My Existence

Writer's Note: The following personal story contains descriptions of "fluff-level" young teenage romance (kissing and physical touching) and PG-13 level content. If you're not mature enough to deal with that, then find another article. 

A few years ago this blogger told y'all two personal short stories about love and Valentine's Day, which were received quite well. The stories I told were both highly viewed, and I admit a little embarrassing. Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that my personal experiences with love on Valentine's Day are not very spectacular in the romantic department and never have been, but they did make for entertaining stories.

The first of those was the story of my first kiss which was given to me by a female classmate in 2nd grade at age 7. It wasn't a particularly romantic experience (we were both kids after all) and it was a one-and-done moment in the annuals of my early years. I only remember that brief meeting of lips so well because it happened on Valentine's Day.

But what about my first real kiss?

By that I mean the first time really swapping spit. Canoodling. Snogging. Pashing. Soul kissing. What the French call your first baiser d'amoureux.

That's right folks, I'm talking about your first real galocher. Florentine kiss. French kiss. Your first real passionate, erotic, intimate kiss with tongues and everything.

Do any of y'all remember your first real kiss? Odds are good almost every one of y'all remember that first time you truly sucked face with someone memorable in your teenage years -- and for good reason.

According to research in a 2012 study by the University of Toronto people remember things that are emotionally arousing quite vividly and this experience is imprinted in the mind. This is why people can remember intricate details of something that happened long ago but not what they ate for breakfast. According to the research more than 90% of all people vividly remember the details of their first kiss.

The mouth is one of the body's main erogenous zones, with more nerve endings that people have on the tips of their fingers. Not only does the human body have a high concentration of nerve endings in the lips, but the lips themselves have one of the thinnest layers of skin in the body. This results in extra amplified sensation. In short, your body gets more information and pleasure from kissing than just about any other kind of physical touching.

Add to the the fact that kissing also results in the release of intoxicating hormones like dopamine and endorphins in the brain which promote pleasure and relaxation. As a result the specific details of your first romantic kiss are more likely to be etched in your memory forever; possibly even more so than all the details of your first lovemaking experience.

I got my first real kiss from a girl on the evening of Saturday, November 17, 1990. The reason I remember that specifically was because it was at the end of the regular NCAA college football season and I'd finished watching the Clemson Tigers defeat the USC Gamecocks in what is practically a yearly tradition at this point in that particular rivalry. That and I looked up the date of the game for this article.

Actually at then 14 years old I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about sports, though my Grandpa Billy (God rest his soul!) got me hooked on that particular college football rivalry game as a life-long fan of the University of South Carolina.

So after watching that game, and not being honestly shocked by the outcome -- a total shutout, the "Chicken Curse" striking again -- I more-or-less decided to hang out with my sister and a friend of hers from junior high (these days we'd call it middle school -- yeah kinda showing my age here) that was spending the night with us that weekend.

For the sake of the story, let's call her Stacey -- not her actual name which I won't disclose because she's married and she's also still friends with me on social media. I did get her permission to tell this story, which was pretty cool.

Now Stacey, like my sister at the time, was a year behind me at the same school in 7th grade. She was also year younger than me, but already a somewhat well-developed teenage girl -- or at least what my 14 year old self would have considered "well-developed" (meaning she was already wearing a real bra as opposed to a trainer like my other sister's friends at the time). An "early bloomer" as my mom would say.

At age 14 I was still stuck in that transition period that all of us were going through in those middle school years when we were no longer kids, but not really on our way to being adults yet either. At the time I was still rushing home after school to watch cartoons like the original G-1 Transformers series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Ducktales (Whoo-Whoo), and Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers, but also just now really beginning to pay attention to all those spicy adult scenes in the slasher movies that I always previously zoned out on waiting for Jason Voorhees to chop up some movie-stupid teenagers with a machete, or some other weapon.

My earliest introduction to actual sex at that time, beyond sex ed classes in sixth grade, had been sneaking peeks at the raunchier scenes from Ralph Bakshi's Fritz The Cat and the original 1981 Heavy Metal sci-fi anthology.

To put it mildly at the time I was only beginning to really notice the physical changes in the opposite sex (and to a lesser degree some members of my own sexual orientation) and the act of sex itself was still a somewhat elusive idea to me in terms of my long-term focus and not the obsession it would become to most teenagers in mid-to-late teen years. 

All that being said at first I wasn't really paying them much attention -- aside from being a bit annoyed by the two of them being giggly and interrupting me watching TV in the living room.

That wasn't to say that my early-hormone-driven 14 year old self didn't keep sneaking peaks at Stacey's breasts. They were hard for me to miss since they were big and she wore a dark t-shirt that outlined them pretty well. The fact she didn't wear a bra at the time was also clearly evident too.

Now being young, inexperienced, and completely oblivious to a lot of things at that age regarding the opposite sex; I pretty much thought my shy glances towards her bouncy fun-bags* were going unnoticed by Stacey.

Yeah, right.

Stacey started to get flirty with me and, being the totally inexperienced, anti-social kid that I was, I responded the best that I could....which I confess was far from cool. She would converse quietly with my sister, both of which would look over at me from the corner of the room and start giggling.

Needless to say, I wasn't amused.

Later on, after more giggly whispers, Stacey wanted me to start hanging out with them. Since the football game was over and I honestly had no other plans that evening except for more television, I suggested some movies.

As we sat on the living room couch to watch horror movies, Stacey sat right next to me between me and my sister, but much closer to me and giving me a much closer view of her chest area. Looking back now, I know that was just what she wanted, but at the time I just thought I was lucky A-F.

Having her close to me like that was also having an effect on me that I can't exactly describe if I want this article to remain "family friendly" but every young male at that age knows what I'm talking about. My only concern at the time was that I hoped Stacey wouldn't notice, and I was very thankful to be wearing extra loose jogging pants at the time. All the same when my sister got one of the large blankets out to cover up with and offer us the other one to share, I didn't hesitate even though I wasn't cold at all.

Stacey and I sat there with a blanket over our laps watching one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies (can't really remember which one) and at some point we began holding hands beneath the blanket and then she leaned against me. Needless to say I was in total shock that she was this close to me, never mind that she seemed to enjoy being so. Again I was very thankful that blanket was where it was positioned.

Then my sister had to get up and use the bathroom and get more snacks, leaving me and Stacey along together.

Stacey looked at me and then asked me if I've ever "Frenched" before. I shook my head and quietly answered, "Not really." Then she bit her lip, leaned in and kissed me. I remember responding to it and then out mouths opened and our tongues lashed together.

To the best of my recollection, I felt my heart pounding really fast. I even remember the small noise she made in her throat that told me she was enjoying herself too. We went on like that for what felt like a few seconds before she pulled away smiling.

Then I remember something even better happening. Stacey turned her body so she could sit in my lap (which turned out not to be very comfortable right then) and put herself in a better position for a second and longer kiss. While we swapped spit the second time, Stacey took my hand and put it under her shirt, letting me have a handful of what felt like paradise.

If my heart was pounding hard before, it felt ready to explode just then. I could also feel her heartbeat beneath my hand and it was going fast too. That was a feeling I wouldn't forget.

A minute later my sister was coming back and she quickly went back to sitting next to me and pretending the last couple minutes didn't happen, although she kept looking at me out of corner of her eyes and grinning. I'd hope that my own face didn't look too goofy either the rest of the night.

That would be the highlight of the evening. An hour later they went to my sister's room and maybe stayed up longer talking and laughing about who knows what -- hopefully not me, but I was sure I came up in the conversation somewhere. As for me, I went to my room and tried to play video games, even though my mind was racing over what happened and what it might mean.

The next day Stacey and I were alone together again on my front porch. Nothing really happened, except she did let me know that she was only messing around with me the night before. I told he I knew, and I asked her if I was a good kisser. She smiled and nodded. Then everything was pretty much cool between us. I was back to watching television and cartoons later that day.

That's "romance" in early teen years for y'all.

Years later the two of us would talk about it and Stacey would confess that she wanted to see what I would do with her and how far I would go. That she'd been as anxious and curious as I was, but neither of us were going to really go much further than kissing and copping feels.

Both of us were 13 and 14 respectively at the time and two young people who were completely new to the idea of sexuality and had no clue what we were doing. At that age I think we both assumed that the opposite sex had more awareness of what to do than they actually did.

Also it was the start of the 1990s, and while today it seems that popular culture in America pushes for younger people to have more knowledge of sexuality -- far more so than I think they actually should in point of fact! -- at the age of 14, the idea of getting a kiss from a girl, never mind anything else, would have been a highlight of my existence.

Sadly, Stacey never really spent the night over again after that. A few weeks later her and my sister had some falling out over some teenage girl drama and Stacey became just another face in the crowd between classes. Although whenever I would see her walking by and she saw me we did share a smile between ourselves from time to time.

And that folks was the story of my first real kiss with a girl. It would also unfortunately be the last time I would swap spit with a girl before the summer I turned 17 and lost my V-Card to a 20 year old young woman -- but that's a whole different story entirely.

So what was your first French kiss like? Do you have an interesting story about it? Please feel free to share in the comments below.

* Months ago before I published this article, I sent a copy to "Stacey" to proofread as I promised her I would. She thought my description there was absolutely hilarious. God bless her!

The Ludicrous Speed We Travel Through Our Universe

Being an amateur stargazer, I have to confess that very few sights on this planet can inspire more amazement and awe from me than the sight of the evening sky after sunset when twilight begins to deepen into night and the very first of our world's nearest heavenly neighbors begin to appear in our sky above.

Going outside at night and watching the moon rise, the planets of our Solar System appear, and thousands of visible stars and galaxies appear overhead in the night sky never ceases to amaze us stargazers.

Even the brightest star known to us, our own bright Sun that we see practically every clear, mostly cloudless daytime from sunrise to sunset, is a wonderful miracle in the heavens that most people seemingly take for granted because its a constant companion.

From our perspective standing here on our good Earth, everything in the heavens appears to be fixed -- aside from our lovely moon and the five visible "wanderers" that we can see with the naked eye.

However, outside of our visual range, our planet travels at an incredible speed of rotation every single day, and in orbit around the Sun. The planets of the solar system also cover distances that might seem surprisingly fast to most of us observing them. Our own bright Sun also travels at insanely fast speeds around our own Milky Way Galaxy.

The reason we don't readily notice this is because the space beyond our planet is so very vast, its nearly incomprehensible to imagine. The distances involved are so long that we cannot possibly measure them simply by miles.

Today, I'm going to tell y'all just how fast and how far we travel. Y'all better buckle up because this is gonna blow your minds.


The Sun, Earth, & The Moon

At the center of our solar system is our own beautiful Sun and this is where our journey begins.

Our Sun is a bright G-type main-sequence star (or G-Type Star) that comprises about 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. The Sun itself rotates at an average of about 28 days, although this varies at different latitudes since the Sun isn't a solid body but rather a giant ball of gaseous plasma. Its width is measured at approximately 864,000 miles, or 109 times that of Earth, with its mass measured at about 330,000 times that of the Earth.

To give you an idea of how huge that actually is, let me explain to y'all the exact speed and distance it takes our Earth to travel in its orbit around the Sun in a single year.

Our planet Earth is the third planet out from the Sun and the fifth largest planet in our Solar System. The mean diameter of the Earth (the distance from one side to the other through Earth's center) is about 7,926 miles across. However, the interesting thing to realize here is that Earth is not quite a total sphere.

Our planet bulges out a bit more around the equator than it does at the poles because of its rotation caused by the flattening at the poles, making it a slight oblate spheroid. Earth is therefore slightly smaller when measured between the North and South Poles (or the meridional circumference), which gives a diameter of 7,907 miles -- or a difference of about 20 miles. Earth's circumference (the distance all the way around the equator) is around 24,900 miles.

Earth itself rotates on its axis in space counter-clockwise approximately once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds in a standard 24 hour day; spinning at an incredible speed of about 1,037 miles and hour. Because Earth spins steadily, as well as moves at a constant rate in orbit around the sun, we have the gravity that holds us all tightly in its grip to this beautiful blue world we all know and love.

The mean distance from the surface of the Sun to the surface of the Earth is around 93 million miles. This distance is measured by astronomers as one astronomical unit (AU).

Since the Earth revolves in an oval shaped path (or elliptical orbit) around the Sun, rather than an even circular path, the exact distance varies ranging between the extremes of perihelion (closest approach) in January and aphelion (most distant orbital position) in July. This actually puts Earth’s orbital distance from the Sun from between approximately 91.5 million to 94 million miles respectively.

Earth travels about 1.6 million miles daily at about 68,000 miles per hour in its orbit around the sun. Over the span of the 365.26 days that makes up a single year, our planet Earth travels around 584 million miles in its orbit around the Sun.

That's pretty incredible huh?

Next to us in the night sky is our own beautiful lunar companion, Luna -- better known as simply the Moon.

The Moon's mean radius is 1,079.6 miles wide with an overall diameter of 2,159 miles, or about a little less than one-third the width of the Earth. Because of tidal forces that keep the Moon from rotating, one side always faces the Earth as it circles us in its monthly rotation.

Like the Earth travels around the sun in an oval-shaped path, the Moon also travels in an oblong orbit. When the Moon is the farthest away from Earth (or at its Apogee), it’s 252,088 miles away, while at it's closest approach (or at its Perigee), the Moon is 225,623 miles away -- the equivalent of about 32 Earths distant.

The Moon makes a complete orbit around the earth every 27.3 days, or approximately 13 times in a calendar year. Given the distance from the Earth and speed, the Moon travels a full distance of 1,423,000 miles an hour at a speed of 2,288 miles per hour to complete this orbit. Because of the rotation of the Earth and our own perspective standing on the surface, we humans do not perceive just how fast this is from our observations -- but its pretty fast!

The sunlight we see here on Earth takes approximately
8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel the 93 million miles
from the surface of the Sun through the gulf of space to reach Earth.

The Speed Of Light 

Our Solar System is so large in sheer scale that using ordinary units of measurement like feet, or miles, simply won't do. On average, Pluto -- the farthest planet in our solar system (and yes, it's still a planet even if its a small one!) has a mind-blowing average mean distance of 3.6 billion miles from the Sun and takes a whopping 247.9 years to orbit the Sun just once!

In order to measure the size of our Solar System more accurately we must use the speed of light as our yard stick.

We use this because the speed of light is constant throughout the universe, traveling in the vacuum of space at an incredible speed of about 186,282 miles per second -- or about 670.6 million miles per hour. To put that in perspective, if you could physically travel at the speed of light, you could go around the Earth a mind-blowing 7.5 times in one second; or travel from Earth to the Moon in about 1.5 seconds.

Now that's ludicrous speed folks, and theoretically nothing can move faster than light outside of science fiction.

One light-minute is about 11,160,000 miles. One light-hour is 671 million miles -- roughly the distance between the sun and halfway between the planets Jupiter and Saturn in our Solar System. One light-day is 16.1 billion miles -- more than four times the distance between the Sun and Pluto. Finally, one light-year is a whopping 5.8 trillion miles!

Standing on the surface of the Earth, when we look up at the bright yellow Sun in the sky and the light that makes up the daytime hours; that light we see takes approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel the 93 million miles from the surface of the Sun through the gulf of space to reach Earth. So, one AU is a bit more than 8 light-minutes in distance.

From the 3.6 billion miles from Sun to Pluto at the far end of the Solar System, it would take sunlight about 5 hours and 40 minutes to cover that distance, or roughly about 39.5 AU.

Now when measuring distances outside of our Solar System, we must turn to another unit of measuring distances called parsecs. A parsec is approximately equal to 3.26 light-years, or 19.2 trillion miles (206,000 AU). A distance of 1,000 parsecs (or 3,262 light years) is called a kiloparsec (KPC).

Beyond our Solar System the nearest stars are in the Alpha Centauri system, a triple star system made up of three stars: Rigil Kentaurus (Centauri A), Toliman (Centauri B), and the small, red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (Centauri C). The closest of these stars, Proxima Centauri, sits at about 4.24 light-years (or 1.30 parsecs) from the Sun.

To put another way, the light from our stellar next door neighbors that we would see standing her on Earth took just over four years to reach us. Also, if we tried to measure that in standard miles, that would be roughly 24,000,000,000,000 miles away! Now that's a lot of zeroes, y'all.


The Milky Way And Beyond

Our entire Solar System -- our Sun with its family of planets, asteroids, and comets -- orbits around the center of the large Milky Way Galaxy.

The Milky Way itself is a large barred spiral galaxy believed to be about 100,000 light years across (30.66 kiloparsecs) and made up of an estimated 100 - 400 billion stars, nebulae, and exoplanets.

The Solar System itself does not lie near the center of our Galaxy, rather it lies about 29,000 lights years (or 8 kiloparsecs) from the Galactic Center on what is known as the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way.

Our Sun and Solar System move in a huge orbit around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy at about about 500,000 miles an hour. That's roughly about 12,500 miles in 90 seconds. Because the Milky Way is such a big place, even at this ludicrous speed, it takes our Sun and Solar System approximately 225-250 million years to complete one single orbit around the galaxy’s center. To put that in perspective, that's roughly Earth's early-to-mid Triassic Period when the first dinosaurs appeared till the present day! This amount of time is referred to as a cosmic year, or a galactic year.

The Milky Way itself travels through the Universe at large at an astonishing 1.3 million miles an hour!

Outside of our galaxy the nearest local bodies are the two Magellanic Clouds that orbit the Milky Way. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is approximately 163,000 light-years (49.9 kiloparsecs) away while the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is approximately 206,000 light-years (63 kiloparsecs) away.   

Beyond the Magellican Clouds the closest neighboring galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31, or NGC 224). Like the Milky Way, it is also a barred spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light years (770 kiloparsecs) from our Sun. The Andromeda Galaxy has an estimated diameter of about 220,000 light years (67 kiloparsecs).

On and interesting note, due to the ever expanding nature of the Universe, the Andromeda Galaxy is currently racing toward our own Milky Way Galaxy at an estimated speed of about 70 miles per second and the two galaxies are expected to collide with each other sometime in about 4-5 billion years from now.

Once we move further out into the Universe itself, the distances become even more daunting. Astronomers typically express the distances between neighboring galaxies and galactic clusters in megaparsecs (MPC) and gigaparsecs (GPC) the largest units of length commonly used. A megaparsec is one million parsecs (or 3,260,000 light-years) and a gigiparsec is one billion parsecs (or 3.26 billion light-years)!

The most distant and probably oldest known galaxy in the observable Universe is GN-z11 approximately 32 billion light-years (or 9.75 gigaparsecs) away from the Milky Way in a Universe that is estimated to be 93 billion light-years (or 28 gigaparsecs) across!

Now that's truly incredible to think about, y'all!


Conclusion

Going about our daily lives we can easily take for granted that we are traveling through this galaxy and universe of ours, propelled at incredibly ludicrous speeds.

Looking up at the night sky, seeing the heavens above us in the sky dome, its truly a humbling experience knowing that in all of that infinity we are all of us merely a small speck of sand in an insanely large ocean of stars and galaxies -- and perhaps far more than we can readily observe even with our best astronomical instruments.

Probably the only thing more infinite than our known Universe is the human imagination itself.

I hope y'all have enjoyed this post, have a wonderful Dixie evening and y'all come back now, ya hear!

This blogger would like to offer a special thanks to the wonderful folks at earthsky.org and NASA for providing the information in this article.