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Dear Reader,
We're accustomed in science fiction to throwing around the term "light-year," but do we really have a good feel for just how far that is? I was reminded of this fact recently when I read an article saying that Voyager 1, after nearly 50 years, is almost 1 light-day from home (it will pass that point in November). At that pace, a light-year would take just under 18,000 years.
A light-year is 16 billion miles, but how far is that? Our minds don't really comprehend distances of that magnitude. For comparison:
- Earth to Moon: 1.3 light-seconds
- Sun to Earth: 499 light-seconds (or 8.3 light-minutes)
- Earth to Mars (closest): 4 light-minutes
- Sun to Pluto: 320 light-minutes (or 5.5 light-hours)
Space is big!
Voyager 1 passed beyond the Solar System 14 years ago, traveling at about 38,000 mph. That's not bad for a relic of 1970's technology, powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators and operating on 69 KB of memory, 8-track tape storage, and software written in Fortran. It's expected to keep operating for just a few more years, and then it will continue drifting through the vastness between stars, carrying a Golden Record containing samples of Earth sounds and data. In 40,000 years, it will pass closely (a mere 1.6 light-years) by the star Gliese 445. Will anyone be there to find it?
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What's Rick Reading Now?
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I'm enjoying the newest novel from Alastair Reynolds, Halcyon Years. The main character is Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. In history, Gagarin died in a plane crash seven years after his historic flight aboard Vostok 1. In this novel, the famous cosmonaut was frozen after that crash and later put on board a 50-km generations ship headed for a distant star. He was revived, but apparently his fame counted for little, and he became a private detective to pay the bills. So this book is kind of a noir, with Yuri investigating the mysterious deaths of two young scions of powerful families (a familiar theme in Reynolds' books), which I suspect will reveal a greater conspiracy concerning the nature (and destination) of the ship. |
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Promotions (free stuff and more!)
For those of you with Kindle Unlimited:
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Here's a new book from Bradley James, The Aftermath: Lunar, the first book in a trilogy. An astronaut finds himself trapped under the moon's surface where he stumbles upon a mysterious doorway to a world that defies imagination. It's just $2.99 on Amazon (or free with Kindle Unlimited). |
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Happy Reading!
Rick A. Allen
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P.S. To ensure you're always getting correspondence from me (including the occasional free ebook!), please whitelist my email address: Rick@RickAAllensf.com
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