Something to blow your mind

Okay, I love learning programs. Discovery, History, all those type channels usually get my attention without any effort at all. Yes, I have a thing for military history, but thats for another time. I'm flipping channels, and like most males of our species that I'm aquainted with, I watch at least two programs at a time. Don't ask me why, all I can say is I hate commercials. So the one on the television now is called "Journey to the Edge of the Universe". Its about the universe, its formation, make-up, life cycle, things of that nature. The thing I find intriguing is wrapping my mind around the concept of just how small we really are. We're on one planet, and for those that have traveled any, its a pretty big thing to us. Now, one step up is 8 more (yes, I still count Pluto) just in our solar system. Next step up? Think of what makes our solar system. Best guess is 50 BILLION solar systems, just in our galaxy. So, if you put in another way, our planet is our house. Our house is on a block called the solar system. Now, if each system is its own block, we'd have 50 billion blocks in our city. Thats not counting the stars forming, the planets off doing their own thing, yadda yadda. I like to wrap my mind around concepts like that sometimes. Makes you realize how insignificant some of the little things we spend soooo much time worrying about, doesn't it? Granted, I'm not going to worry about them any less. But its kind of fun to occupy my mind with now and again. All of human history, even Earth's history, spans what, a few hundred million years? A Galactic Year, which is when our solar system makes it around the center of the galaxy once, takes 250 million years. So, basically, all the life on this planet has happend in a year. Kind of wild, isn't it?

Then, just in case I haven't given you fits yet, think of travel time. To go between our house and our closest neighbor, would take 214 days. Thats slower that a snail takes to travel 10 miles. LOL, no, I'm not sure about the snail thing, but it sounds about accurate. To travel from one end of the block to another? Right around 24 years. That will have moved your odometer about 3.5 Billion miles. Thats just our block! LOL, and I bitch about the hour it takes to get to work! But there's a new hot rod on the block. NASA launced a probe in 2006 thats billed as the fastest vehicle ever invented. It should reach Pluto sometime in 2015. Talk about significant cut to drive time! Makes me wonder if they'll come up with something to haul people before I die. LOL, Told you my mind wandered