Our Earth and solar system by the numbers

Our planet, a grain of sand on the universe beach.

Our solar system is enormous when viewed from the small planet we inhabit. However, it pales into insignificance when compared to the size of the Milky Way Galaxy where our solar system resides. Our galaxy, in turn, is microscopic when compared to the universe that has an estimated diameter of 93 billion light-years. Point of view is everything.

The following are a number of distances and speeds to ponder on when viewed in comparison to the achievements of humans to date in the fledgling space industry. Milestones include landing men on the moon, numerous probes landed on Mars and various tiny spacecraft sent out to explore distant aspects of our solar system, some of them are still in operation and have now ventured out into the cosmos. The most famous example is Voyager 1, now at a distance of 21.8 billion kilometers (kms) or 13.6 billion miles from Earth as of July 11, 2019. It is the most distant man-made object from Earth. Signals from Voyager 1 take about 19 hours to reach Earth.

The diameter of the earth is 12,474 kms or 7,915 miles