Big Numbers: The first thing I noticed in reading about science is that there's always a lot of numbers and they're usually really big numbers. So the first task in understanding science is understanding big numbers.When I taught fourth grade arithmetic, I concentrated on the "place value chart" and reading numbers up to the trillions.
Place Value Chart
When teaching whole numbers, I used to write the following on the black board:
trillions
billions
millions
thousands
units
100s/10s/1s
100s/10s/1s
100s/10s/1s
100s/10s/1s
100s/10s/1s
000
,
000
,
000
,
000
,
000
Once the basic were learned, then the fun began reading large number facts. Well, did you know?:
There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
More than 15,000,000,000 prizes have been given away in Cracker Jack's boxes.
Scientific Notation: But scientist often use extremely large and very small numbers which are displayed in a compact manner called scientific notation:
For example the very large number ten quadrillion can be denoted as 1016 or ten to the sixteenth power. computed as:
(10,000,000,000,000,000 = 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10
x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 1016 ) or most easily, a one followed by 16 zeros. Each power is 10 times larger.
For the very small fractions and decimals negative powers are used. Example three hundredths would be 3 X 10-2
What are atoms. Atoms are a building blocks of matter composed of three basic units: protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons (with a positive electrical charge) and neutrons (with no electrical charge) make up the nucleus of the atom. The third unit, electrons, (with a negative electrical charge) are most easily visualized as a particle in orbit around the nucleus and bound together by the "electromagnetic Force". Think about magnets sometimes poles attract and sometimes they repel --- that's somewhat like the force that keeps a nucleus together, an electron at a distance, and other atomic units repulsed.
Different combinations of the units(protons, neutrons and electrons) make up the "Periodic Table of Elements" starting with #1-hydrogen (1 unit each) and increasing in number (and atomic weight) as additional units are added making things like #74-tungsten that has 74 protons and an equal number of neutrons and electrons.
An Atom nucleus is practically indestructible (the strong force) so when you split one you get a lot of energy released. But even an average atom has a limited lifetime (the weak force) of 1045 power years. (10 followed by 45 zeros, years)
Neutrons add nothing but mass to an atom, and usually equal the number of protons. Imbalanced proton/neutron atoms are called isotopes.
Atoms (even those working together as a molecule) maintain a distance – they hover around each other (like the repulsion of a magnet), the negative charges of the electron cloud repulses the negative charge of other nearby atoms' electron cloud.
To split an atom you fire a neutron into its nucleus. Splitting an atom releases some of its energy. (Atomic Bomb)
But the basic units of an atom are made form even smaller particles. So how Big is an atom and how small are its unit particles? See the next two subjects.
How big are atoms. Atoms are real small: five-hundred-billion protons would fit on the dot of the period at the end of this sentence.
OR: more examples
A half million atoms lined side by side wouldn't’t equal the width of a human hair.
1 ten millionth of a millimeter is the width of an atom
One atom is to the size of a millimeter, as one flat sheet of paper is to the Empire State Building.
Atoms are mostly empty space. An atom nucleus the size of a pea would scale up to a whole atom the size of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome ---- there's a lot of empty space in there.
Two or more atoms working together make a molecule (i.e. H2O -- water, which is made up of two hydrogen atoms plus one oxygen atom.
At sea level a sugar cube size of air contains 45 Billion, Billion molecules. (45 X 10 to 18th power)
Sub-atomic Particles - whose interactions with other "particles" remain largely a mystery, even 80 years after the establishment of quantum mechanics. In 1915 the atom's neutron, proton, electron were the particle model of physics. Since then dozens more subatomic particles have been discovered.
Most of the particles are encountered in cosmic rays interacting with matter and are produced by scattering processes in particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. For instance you take a couple of protons and accelerate them in opposite directions around a 27 mile tube at near the speed of light and see what pieces pops out when they collide.
That's what particle accelerators do. It is anticipated that a collider will someday demonstrate the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle among those predicted by the Standard Model -- currently science's best guess of the basic particles and how they behave in our universe.
UPDATE: Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in 2013 produced a particle with properties consistent to the theorized Higgs Boson -- and later works confirmed this discovery.
UPDATE: On 15 December 2015, two teams of physicists, working independently at CERN, reported preliminary hints of a possible new subatomic particle: if real, the particle could be either a heavier version of a Higgs boson or a graviton. Is gravity due to a kind of particle exchange? If so maybe that particle is the as yet unconfirmed graviton.
Dark Matter & Energy - Somewhere along the line of discovery scientist figured that there wasn't enough physical matter (visible atoms and such) in the universe to explain how what we see happening-- could be happening. They could see things being effected by gravity where no visible matter/mass was present. That meant something else ---other than visible matter was involved -- dark matter. It turns out the dark matter component has much more mass than the "visible" component of the universe.
At present, the density of ordinary matter is estimated to equal about one hydrogen atom per cubic meter of space. But that's only enough matter to explain about 4% of what's visibly occurring gravitationally in the universe as observed -- like why galaxies spin and other observations. So where's the other 96% of the matter needed to make the universe behave gravitationally the way it does?
About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter. Investigations in Dark matter reveled two types: MACHO(M-DM) and WIMPS(W-DM) . M-DM includes black holes, neutron stars, planets --- matter that doesn't shine, but it does have a gravitational influence on objects that are visible and so is inferred to exist. W-MD is stuff so small its component gravitational influence is undetectable but still has mass and gravity. It can even include sub-atomic particle so small that they can pass through the Earth unimpeded. Experimentation shows that WIMPs are the predominate Dark Matter. Both categories of Dark Matter dark matter particles have enough mass in total to account for another 22% of the observable effects of gravity.
So if there's 4% observable matter and 22% dark matter, that still means 74% of the gravitation effect is unaccounted for -- what is it? Dark Energy.
And what's Dark energy -- nobody seems to have a clue. It's as if I showed you a full bottle of liquid and tell you it contains 24% water. What's the other 74% liquid. Oh, and you can't taste, weigh or even see the liquid (it's in a black bottle). That's the problem scientist face. They know something's there, but they don't what could it be?
What is dark energy is the big question with no answer -- at present.
Above is a side on picture of dark matter.
Just kidding.
What makes Gravity: First a little background:. There are four basic forces that control the universe. Three of the forces are fairly well understood in what's called the Standard Model and include the following.
The electromagnetic -Electromagnetism is the force that acts between electrically charged particles. You can see this force in how matter attracts or repulses based on electrical charge: for instance a positive charged particle repulses another positive charged particle, but will be attracted to another negative charged particle.
The strong nuclear strong nuclear force, is the most complicated interaction because it's only in play inside the nucleus of an atom -- it holds the neutron and proton together in an incredibly strong grip.
the weak nuclear force deals with the ultimate decay of atoms
That leaves just one force misunderstood force: Gravity, the weakest force. And that brings us back to the question, "what's Gravity".
Simple answer: nobody knows! But we do know some things about gravity. Newton discovered that all matter has a gravitational pull equal to its mass. Two objects tug at each other and the force varies inversely as the square of the distance between them. This means that if you double the distance between two objects the gravitational pull is 4 times weaker. And what that means is that gravity really isn't a very strong force.
Think about it --- the whole earth and I both have gravitational pull (equal to our mass), but even with so much mass in the Earth, I can still resist its gravitational pull --- I can lift my arm. Now if I was standing on another planet with say the mass of Jupiter, I couldn't lift my arm, and I would weigh thousands of pounds. So that's why I don't live on Jupiter!
Sir Isaac Newton's , The Principia, also revealed the three Laws of Motion
A thing will move in the direction it’s pushed
Everything moves in a straight line until some other force acts on it
Every action has an equal but opposite reaction
These three laws published in 1687 described the effects of gravity, but to this day no one has been able to determine the cause of gravity. Einstein spent the latter parts of his career trying to unify a Theory of Gravity with other three forces but failed. No ones done much better since. And gravity is really important. Above the atomic structure, gravity is what makes world go round.
Theory of Universe - There are two main theories used to describe the universe and how it functions: the large and the small theory.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity best describes the large universe and includes laws (ie The speed limit of the universe is the speed of light and nothing can exceed that speed of 186,000 miles per second). Relativity often defies logic.
Then there is theory of the small -- the subatomic -- universe. That theory, Quantum Mechanics, doesn't seem to follow all the laws of relativity and almost always defies logic.
Theory of Relativity: basically says that energy doesn't’t come as continuous thing like a water facet, but instead comes in individual packets (this suggested that light didn't’t need to be a wave) and resulted in the famous formula:
E=MC2 (energy = mass times the speed of light squared)
and says energy and matter are equal – OR—energy is liberated matter and matter is energy waiting to be released. Then by the formula Energy is a very large number and inversely (If matter = energy divided by the speed of light squared) then matter is a very small number.
The theory of relativity also says space and time are not absolutes --- they are relative to the observer and the object being observed – and the faster we go the more distorted time and space become.
A 100 yard long train going 60% of the speed of light would (to people standing station platform) appear 80 yards long (squashed), the train peoples voices would sound slow, and clocks on the on the train would appear to move more slowly (4/5 of normal). For the people on the train, everything would appear normal except the people on the platform who would appear scrunched, moving and speaking more slowly, etc.
But it’s not just appearance – e.g. twin paradox says that if there were two twins and one got on a rocket ship that could travel at very near the speed of light heading for a star 10 light years away, he would be back in 20 years. Relativity tells us for the twin on the ship, time would slow down. By his clock the trip would only take a few weeks and if he wasn't shaving he'd just be starting a nice beard. But for the twin left behind, time would not slow down. He would have aged 20 years before his brother would return.
This theory was confirmed in an experiment with two identically synchronized atomic clocks. One clock was put on a space shuttle and orbited repeatedly at a high speed. Later when the two clocks were compared, the space clock time was fractionally slower than the earth bound clock's time. The difference was only tiny because the shuttle speed of 18,000 MP Hour is a while lot slower than the speed of light 186,000 MP Second where theoretically time stops.
Theory of Quantum Mechanics: In dealing with electron paths Says: You can never predict where an electron will be at a given moment. It appears to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Despite all the graphics where electrons look like planets in orbit around a sun (nucleus) it’s more like a cloud.
Weird idea: a pair of electrons each knows what the other is doing regardless of their distance. Spin one to the right and its partner will at the same instance spin to the left at the same speed --- even if they are separated by light years (just theory) but then an actual test at Bern proved the theory on two electrons at a distance of 7 miles. This breaks Einstein’s speed of light law!
About Stars: They appear to be the most numerous extraterrestrial units of the universe, because they're seemingly everywhere. About 6,000 stars are visible from to the naked eye from Earth and only about 2,000 from any one spot on Earth.
Stars are born from clouds of atoms drawn together by gravity. With hydrogen being the most common and basic atom in the universe, it's not surprising that stars start out as mostly hydrogen. As more and more atoms combine the center of the gravitation, the stars core, heats up to a critical ignition point where those almost indestructible atoms start to fuse together creating new elements. The most basic fusion occurs when two hydrogen atoms combine into a single helium atom. Because a helium nucleus is slightly less massive than the sum of the mass (matter) in the two hydrogen atoms, the fusion process converts the difference into energy that radiates into space -- starshine and sunshine. Almost all the elements in the Periodic Table are created by this nuclear fusion, with the more massive (hotter core) stars fusing the heavier elements. The radiation or energy release is the evidence of E=MC2.
The smallest stars found seem to be about 8.3% of our sun's solar mass, or about 87 times the mass of Jupiter. The largest stars have solar masses 150 times our sun. The larger the star, the faster they consume their fuel and the shorter their lives --- the largest star lives are measured in just a few million years. The larger stars are also unique in how they end their lives.
Stars having more than 9 times our solar mass will attempt to end their lives like our sun will with an expansion. However if the remnant core has a mass in excess of 1.4 solar mass, there will be a rapid contraction (collapse of the core) forcing electrons to fuse into protons and releasing an enormous explosion called a super nova. The remaining core neutrons then combine to form a neutron star --- an incredible dense mass. A teaspoon full of neutron star would weigh more than an aircraft carrier and the remaining diameter of the star can be measured in tens of miles. The heaviest elements in the periodic table like gold are created in energy release of a super nova.
In a dying star with 10 to 15 times our sun's mass (and a remnant core mass greater than 4 solar masses), the rapid collapse doesn't stop but continues to contract into what must be the most dense (and least understood) object in the universe --- a black hole. In fact a black hole is said to have zero volume and an infinite density point called the singularity. If you get too close to a black hole and called a critical distance point, there's no escaping its the gravitational pull -- not even light attempting to pass through can escape. That's one way black holes are observable by absence of light from stars behind them. Another way black holes reveal themselves is how distant objects react to the massive gravitational pull.
An interesting thought about black holes is if you could covert all the mass and matter of our Earth into a black hole, you would end up with a sphere two-thirds of an inch in diameter.
Stars Shine - When we look into the night sky we see stars shine, twinkle. During the day we see light from a much closer star, our Sun. The visible light we see is just one part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that leaves the sun traveling in waves and arrives at the earth about 8 minutes later.
The following table shows what a single piece of light wave looks like from the largest, longest, and least energetic wave (Radio Rays) to the smallest, shortest, and most dangerous waves (X and Gamma Rays).
Our Sun emits the entire spectrum, however the gamma rays are limited to the hottest most violent events like a solar burst of the type known to fry the electronics of some of our satellites. And our earth's ozone layer stops most of the remaining X and Gamma rays. The next shortest rays are ultra-violet (UV), and again UV are are mostly getting blocked by the ozone. But not all --- enough get trough to give you a nasty sun burn if you expose yourself long enough.
The light we see is naturally enough called the visible part of the spectrum and includes all the colors of the rainbow in separate bands. Remember experimenting with prisms that separate visible light into bands? Anyway this is the spectrum that astronomers have used most to understand the universe. Just in the last hundred years, we learned that stars moving away from us shine more in the Red spectrum than stars moving towards us that shine more in the Blue spectrum. This knowledge led to many of the greatest discoveries discussed in the life of the universe section below. For now it's sufficient just to know that this shifting in the spectrum by moving stars is called the Doppler Effect. An easy example to demonstrate how the doppler effect works is to use an example of the distinct change in the sound of a passing train's whistle blast as it moves toward and then away from you. Play the little video below to experience the Doppler Effect.
The change in sound is caused by a change in frequency, a measure of sound. Knowing the frequency of a horn standing still, scientist can even use the changes in frequency, the shift, to determine the speed of the moving object. While the physics between the shift in a horn sound and a stars light is very different, the concept is similar in that scientist can determine if an object is moving toward, away, or standing still using the Doppler Effect.
With light waves, objects moving away from you are shifted to lower frequencies (RED) and object moving toward you are shifted more toward the higher frequencies(Blue/violet). The result is that astronomers can measure how fast another star or galaxy is moving toward us by the "Red-Shift" in the visible light spectrum of the object.
Life of the universe --- Like an infant early man had a centric view of the universe -- everything revolved around them. Early Genesis stories ran a gamut of universe birth tales. Based on what I've read the Hindu's have probably the closest folklore to reality. They age the universe in Brahma days --- 8.6 billion Christian years. At the end of a hundred Brahma years the universe dissolves itself, waits another hundred years, and then rebirths in an infinite cycle. Compare that with a Hebrew six days to creation and and a creationists universal age in thousands of years.
Current scientific theory says the universe was born 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang and has been expanding ever since (more about that in the next section- size of the universe). It appears this expansion is currently increasing in velocity which apparently is the result of Dark Energy. Everywhere astronomers look in the sky distant galaxies are moving away from us and based on red shifts and a lot more math shows, they are moving away at an ever increasing rate of speed. This effect is the opposite of what would have been expected from a universe made wholly from physical matter, but is the result of the little understood dark energy force (see notes on dark matter and energy).
So does that mean the universe will expand forever? That's the million dollar question, and the answer is maybe. Or maybe, the expansion will eventually just run out of energy and just sort of come to a stop. Or more in line with the Hindu tales, maybe after a period of slowing expansion, gravity will began to pull the the universe back in on itself in what has been called the "Big Crunch" -- back to a singularity like just before the last big bang.
The key to which scenario will occur, is the amount of matter in the universe. Remembering the matter to gravity relationship. Given enough matter, gravity will eventually result in a collapse. Not enough matter and there won't be enough gravity to slow down so that the expansion that will continue forever.
In any case there's is what's called the "Weak Force" that states, eventually all atom neutrons will decay. Sort of like how a uranium atoms decay in the form of radiation. Except that where uranium decays in half lives of thousands of years, it will take a very, very, very long time (1045years) before the last atom decays leaving the expanding or stopped universe a totally dark and cold universe. And if Dark Energy continues to accelerate universal expansion unabated then the universe faces the "Big Rip" where all those decayed cold particles just accelerate away from each other through infinity. I'm not sure that's any better than a crunched universe.
The best alternative to the cold-ripped or crunched endings rest in an even weirder theory of multiple dimensions beyond the four we experience: height, width, depth and time. Multiple dimensions (string theory) suggests that there may even be multiple universes. Like maybe even a parallel universes where there's another Bob sitting writing this sentence; except that Bob doesn't like tacos, and his dog is named Nickel. Weird, huh?
Size of the Universe (now): It's really big. Current theory says it's over 90 billion light years across. This never made sense to me, because if the the universe is only 13 Billion years old and no matter can move faster than the speed of light. Then the universe must be less than 26 light years across ---i.e. less than thirteen billion light years distance in each direction from the point of the big bang. But astrophysicist explain this inconsistency with the "Inflation Theory". It states that in the first few billion-billion-trillionth of a second following the Big Bang there was a period where the universe inflated unimaginably fast and exponentially (1026times expansion). All this was when the universe was incredible hot. Too hot for even any subatomic matter particles to have formed into matter. There was just pure radiating energy and apparently with pure radiation at temperatures exceeding (1032 degrees kelvin) cosmic speed limit don't apply.
When things finally (after a few trillion-trillionths of a second) cooled down, the laws of nature (Newtonian, quantum mechanics, relativity) took over -- matter congealed, atoms formed, and gravity replaced radiation as the primary force of the universe. After a few hundred million years stars and galaxies appeared. Lots of stars in lots of galaxies distributed in clumps across the universe.
My favorite way of thinking about the size of the universe is that there are more stars in our universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet Earth.
About Galaxies -- It's estimated there about a 150 billion galaxies in the universe. That is unless you pick up a book that estimates 125 billion. In short nobody really knows. Galaxies as distinct from stars were not discovered until the 18th century.
Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is estimated to have 100 to 200 billion stars in it. Apparently it's like trying to count the trees of a forest from a stationary spot inside the forest, because astronomers seem to have a more precise count of other galaxies. For instance the closest super Galaxy, Andromeda (2.25 million light years distance), is most often said to contain about 500 billion stars. And some galaxies are much larger than Andromeda. So to be accurate it is said that galaxies generally contain between a 100 million and a trillion stars. Probably accurate, but not very precise.
Galaxies also come in many different shapes based on the gravitational forces that formed them. It's easier to see distant galaxies, so it's only my guess that our milky way is a SBb category galaxy.
However it's agreed that our sun is located on one of the spiral arms relatively distant from the galaxy center as shown in the model below. With an estimated size of a hundred-thousand light years across and seven thousand light years thick, the Milky Way Galaxy is just an unspecial galaxy and our sun just one of its 200 billion sun-stars. The side on image view of our galaxy helps in understanding how the Milky Way gets its name. During the season of the year when our planet Earth's revolution around the sun has its night sky facing toward the galaxy center, there appears to be a milky band of light overhead. We are looking into the crowded part. This happens during the summer in the northern hemisphere of Earth.
Our sun orbits around the gravitationally superior mass of the galaxy nucleus, just as the earth and other planets and the other planets in our solar system orbit the superior mass of our sun. It takes about 225 million years for our sun (and us) to complete one revolution because we're so far away from the center and only traveling at 155 miles per second. So the last time our Earth was in the same position dinosaurs were walking around.
Another fun way to imagine the size of our galaxy is if every star in the Milky Way was a grain of salt they would fill an Olympic sized swimming pool.
About Our Sun, Our star. Sol, is an average size star not unique in any way other than most star systems are binary --- two stars drawn together in a gravitational orbit. Sol is about 4.5 billion years old and is believed to contain enough fuel to continue fusing energy for another 8 billion years. When our star burns its self out, the remnants will be what's called a white dwarf. No longer burning-- just a glowing ember. However just before this burn out, the outer layers of our sun will expand and envelope the inner planets including our Earth boiling away the oceans and atmosphere and scorching the land areas clean.
About our Solar System: The core of our solar system is Sol: our sun. Sol is just one of an estimated 100 to 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. (see galaxies for an explanation of the variance)
Our solar system is made up of a lot of different parts: planets, dwarf-planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dust, and mostly the sun. In fact 98% of all the matter in our system is in the Sol. That's why everything revolves around Sol. It has the most mass, gravity. The second largest item, Jupiter at 1 1/4 % of the system mass, takes up most remaining mass. The remainder, 3/4 of a percent, is the combined mass of all the remaining planets, moons,...etc.
Our solar system covers a lot of area, too. Using light years as a measure, our Earth is 8 light minutes away from the Sol while Pluto average distant 7 light hours from Sol. Continuing on it's about 1.5 light years to the end of the Ort Cloud where most of the comets hang out (also,the recognized outer limit of our system) and 4.3 light years to the nearest neighbor star, Proxima Centauri. In our fastest rocket of today, it would take about 25,000 years to travel to the nearest star.
Although size scale is somewhat accurate, distance between planets are not to scale
By last count there were eight planets plus, numerous dwarf-planets --- a body in the solar system that has a rounded shape like a major planet but is too small to clear other bodies from the region of space around its orbit with its own gravity. Recognized dwarf planets include Pluto (formerly counted as the ninth planet), Eris, and Ceres (formerly considered the largest asteroid). The eight recognized planets of our solar system are from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The chart below compares some of the planet facts then there will be some strange facts.
Eight Planet Table
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
diameter (Earth=1)
0.382
0.949
1
0.532
11.209
9.44
4.007
3.883
mass (Earth=1)
0.055
0.815
1
0.107
318
95
15
17
mean distance from Sun
(where earth = 1 )
0.39
0.72
1
1.52
5.20
9.54
19.18
30.06
orbital period (Earth years)
0.24
0.62
1
1.88
11.86
29.46
84.01
164.8
rotation period (in Earth days)
58.65
-243*
1
1.03
0.41
0.44
-0.72*
0.72
inclination of axis (degrees)
0.0
177.4
23.45
23.98
3.08
26.73
97.92
28.8
mean temperature at surface (Centigrade)
-180 to 430
465
-89 to 58
-82 to 0
-150
-170
-200
-210
gravity at equator (Earth=1)
0.38
0.9
1
0.38
2.64
0.93
0.89
1.12
mean density (water=1)
5.43
5.25
5.52
3.93
1.33
0.71
1.24
1.67
number of moons
0
0
1
2
63
60
27
13
rings?
no
no
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
Each planet also has a little something uniquely interesting about it.
Mercury: Because it is so close, the Sun appears to be 2 and 1/2 times larger on Mercury than viewed from the Earth. With every day last 59 Earth days Mercury has plenty of time to heat up and cool down. Highs and lows range from +800 to -300 degrees fahrenheit
Venus: It is believed that Venus used to have bodies of water similar to Earth, but dried up over a period of 300 million years when the sun began admitting more solar energy after the sun's infancy stage.The clouds of Venus are filled with sulfuric acid. Venus has mountains that are higher than Earth. Mount Mons is more than 5 miles high. On venus the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
Earth: see devoted topic
Mars: Like Earth, the poles of Mars are covered in ice. The ice becomes thicker in the winter where temperatures can drop to -191 degrees fahrenheit Valleys and Canyons on Mars suggest that the planet once had large amounts of surface water. The thin atmosphere of Mars is made of mostly carbon dioxide. A hundred pound man would weight 38 pounds on Mars. At just a little over half the size of earth, Mars has surface features that dwarf those of Earth including the volcano Mons Olympus that towers 15 miles above the valley and a 3,100 mile canyon rift.
Jupiter: Is the largest planet with a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a diameter that is 11 times larger. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 264 pounds on Jupiter. The surface of Jupiter is covered by an ocean of hydrogen with a sludge-like consistency. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter,which has lasted for as many as 3000 years, is a hurricane like storm large enough to contain two or three planets the size of Earth. Jupiter also has the biggest moon in the Solar System, Ganymede that's bigger than Mercury. Also the moon Europa might be the only place other than Earth that has liquid water in abundance. The water is believed to lie under a sheet of ice miles deep.
Saturn: Saturn has the lowest density of all the planets in the solar system. It is so light that it could actually float on water if there was an ocean big enough to hold it has no solid surface. It is a giant ball of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium), but it does have a solid inner core. Saturn's moon Titan is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere of its own.
Uranus: Uranus is considered unusual because the planet is tipped on its side. The poles actually point towards the Sun. This is due to the fact that its magnetic field is tilted 60 degrees from the axis of rotation
which means that it alternately has its north pole and its south pole turned towards the sun. Because of the strange way it spins, nights on some parts of Uranus can last for more than 40 years.
Neptune: Neptune is another gas giant with an atmosphere of Hydrogen, Helium and Methane (its sea blue color is due to the methane) and a rocky core. Neptune is the stormiest planet. The winds there can blow up to 1,240 miles per hour. Neptune has its own heat source, it emits a quantity of energy 2.7 times greater than it receives from the sun.
About Our Earth: (in progress) The 3rd Rock was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Initially molten, the outer layer of the planet Earth cooled to form a solid crust when water began accumulating in the atmosphere. The Moon formed shortly thereafter, 4.53 billion years ago, most likely as the result of a Mars-sized object (sometimes called Theia) with about 10% of the Earth's mass impacting the Earth in a glancing blow.Some of this object's mass would have merged with the Earth and a portion would have been ejected into space, but enough material would have been sent into orbit to form the Moon.
Outgassing (the release of gases from objects) and volcanic activity produced the primordial atmosphere. Condensing water vapor, augmented by ice and liquid water delivered by asteroids and comets, produced the oceans. The newly-formed Sun was only 70% of its present luminosity, yet evidence shows that the early oceans remained liquid—a contradiction dubbed the faint young Sun paradox. A combination of greenhouse gases and higher levels of solar activity served to raise the Earth's surface temperature, preventing an immediate freezing over of the oceans. However Snowball Earth refers to a hypotheses regarding paleoclimatic global-scale glaciation, claiming that the Earth 's surface (including oceans) was nearly or entirely frozen over 600 to 700 million years ago.
The deepest part of any ocean in the world is the Mariana trench in the Pacific with a depth of 35,797 feet, 6.7 miles deep. It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink to the bottom of the trench. Mount Everest at 29,028 feet or 5.5 miles above sea level is the highest peak on Earth. So when considering the difference from the highest to the lowest is about 12.2 miles. But when considering that the Earth's diameter is 7,926 miles, we can see that the Earth really is close to being a smooth sphere just as it appears from outer space.
Earth Layers
Outer to Inner
Layer Name
Thickness
miles
Temperature
Fahrenheit
Composition
Factoid
Atmosphere
Exosphere
39,600
Atmospheric temperatures are deceiving. Gases at some of the highest altitudes can be heated to over 3,000 degrees fahrenheit when in direct sunlight.
However because of the near vacuum at those altitudes there are not enough atoms to transfer much heat. So even though the sun heats the molecules more at higher altitudes, the ambient temperature would be less.
Without direct sunlight temperatures plummet.
just an occasional molecule gradually escaping into space
all air is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% other gases
Thermosphere
350
fewer molecules but great temperature variations
up here sound can not be conducted due to the few atom contacts
Mesosphere
20
trace molecules
here's where meteors burn up major temperature variations
Stratosphere
20
nitrogen contains 24% of atmosphere molecules
this is also the ozone layer
Troposphere
10
contains 75% of atmosphere molecules
Here is where weather and clouds reside
Surface
Crust
22
900
primarily granite
less than 1% of Earth's volume -- here is where earthquakes are felt
Upper Mantle
16
2,500
coarse grained rock that can slowly flow
the upper surface is the face of the tectonic plates
Mantle
1,752
4,500
iron and magnesium silicates that flow more slowly than upper mantle
at this level the pressures ar well over 1 million times the air pressure at sea level
Outer Core
1,370
9,000
liquid composition of 80% Iron with Nick le and lighter elements
This is where the magnetic field is generated
Inner Core
(solid)
794
12,000
solid mass, but composition like outer core with maybe innermost heavy metals like gold, platinum
the cores together account for 31% of the Earth's mass but only 16% of the volume
Comets, Asteroids and Meteors: There's a lot of these little guys flying around the solar system. The main difference in comets and asteroids lies in their compost ion and location. Comets orbit the Sun from two places: the Kuiper Belt (just outside the orbit of Neptune) and the Ort Cloud (located at the outer fringe of the solar system), while billions of asteroids occupy the Asteroid Belt (an area located between Mars and Jupiter). The differences in composition is while asteroids are mostly composed of solids like rock and metal, comets have been found to contain high quantities of frozen water mixed with rock and dust. Comets are often likened to a dirty snowball.
Comet Hale Bopp 1997, Lauren and I watched it over 3 nights from our camp site in San Clemente
But the distinction between comets and asteroids was never as clear cut as implied above. In the past the main way of differentiating was if the object seen had a tail when nearing the Sun. Yes, comet - no, asteroid. Then it was discovered that a comet over many orbits could have burned off all its tail producing composites. So in 2006, a group of international astronomers, came up with a new designation: SSSB, for small solar system body, that includes both comets and asteroids plus any other object smaller than a Dwarf Planet.
Also, the location of comets and asteroids aren't as fixed as indicated above. Occasionally a collision or the gravitational tug of another object will cause a comet or asteroid to change its orbit -- more often than not toward the direction of the Sun. These are the SSSBs that can cause us problems when their new orbit intersects with the Earths orbit. A six-mile diameter asteroid hit the Earth 65 mil years ago in the gulf of Mexico causing the extinction of the Dinosaurs. Sounds like a long time ago, but remembering the Cosmic Calendar, that was less than two days ago. In 1994, a fragments of the comet Shoemaker Levy impacted Jupiter producing a visible scars in Jupiter's atmosphere larger than the Great Red Spot that lasted for months. Picture below shows three impact sites each two times the size of Earth.
Three comet fragments impact sites in Jupiter's southern hemisphere
This brings us to the third topic: meteors. Meteors are SSSBs that enter the Earths atmosphere. Small ones ranging in size from a dust particle to a boulder will burn brightly from the atmospheric friction and we call them shooting stars in the night sky. Occasionally a remnants of larger meteor will strike the earth becoming a meteorite. The size of meteorites varies greatly. Most of them are relatively small. The largest meteorite ever found weighs about 66 tons. It fell on a farm in Namibia, Africa. However, much larger bodies, such as asteroids and comets, can also strike the earth and become meteorites.
Meteorites reach the earth's surface because they are the right size to travel through the atmosphere. If they are too small, they will disintegrate in the atmosphere. If they are too large, they may explode before reaching the earth's surface. One such object exploded about 6 miles above the Tunguska River in Siberia in 1908, leaving a 20-mile area of fallen and scorched trees.
When large bodies such as asteroids and comets strike a planet, they produce an impact crater or impact basin. One of Earth's most famous, the Meteor Crater in Arizona, is about 4,180 feet across and 570 feet deep.The largest known basin is 190 miles in diameter centered in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula resulting from the Dinosaur killer 65 million years ago.
Meteor Crater Arizona as seen from a plane with visitor center just above wing tip
Seventy million years ago Manson, Iowa was hit with a 1 ½ mile wide asteroid. It hit at 10 times the speed of a bullet causing a crater 5 miles across and 3 miles deep into the earth. If that same asteroid would strike today, the dead zone (area where all life would be extinguished) would be 1,000-mile in diameter, but then there would be earth wide spread earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis – and years of weather changes. The estimated first day death toll is 1.5 billion. Maybe a repeat of this event would not result in not a human extinction, but life would sure be tough for all the survivors.
At the equator the earth is spinning on its axis at about 733 miles per hour. (note at the north pole the speed is effectively zero -- think about it.) One complete rotation takes 24 hours.
The earth is also revolving around the sun at a speed of 66,600 miles per hour taking a fraction over 365 days to complete one revolution -- a year.
It doesn't stop there, because our sun is also revolving around the center of our galaxy at a speed of about 23,500 miles per hour. Because the sun is about 26,000 light years away from the center it still takes around 215 million years to complete one revolution. So the last time the sun found itself in the same position dinosaurs were roaming the earth.
And our galaxy isn't standing still. Our Milky Way and the nearest other Galaxy, Andromeda, are approaching each other at a speed of 300,000 miles per hour. But not to worry. Andromeda is still a long ways away. In fact we won't collide for another 5 billion years.
Finally, except for our local group of galaxies that includes the Milky Way, Andromeda and another 34 galaxies, all the galaxies in the visible universe are speeding away from one another and here's where speeds and distances seem to fall apart. This is where the concept of "expansion" comes into play.
When astronomers look beyond our local group they see that in any direction they look, all the galaxies are speeding away from each other -- and the explanation is a little difficult to perceive. The explanation is that the universe is expanding.
The next paragraph and the picture below tries to explain this concept in the best example that I've been able to find. Take a loaf of unleavened raisin bread, where the loaf is the universe, the raisins are the galaxies, and the dough is the empty space between the galaxies. If you put the loaf into the oven it would expand, and the raisins would be further apart, but the raisins themselves would remain the same size. The universe’s expansion works similar to this model: as it expands the uniform dough expands, but the specific raisins keep their size and shape.
In the image below the left circle is the unleavened universe with the dots (raisins) representing the galaxies. The circle on the right is the baked (risin) expanded loaf.
So what do all the speeds add up to? If everything were perfectly aligned in the same direction, your final speed would be 1.9 million miles per hour. By sitting in your chair you are traveling the distance across the country just a hair under five seconds, which is definitely something to ponder next time you wonder about why you haven't been anywhere in a long time.
The best theory of the day is that our moon was born out of a collision of the Earth with an object about the size of Mars about 4.5 billion years ago. A large chunk of Earth was blown off into space eventually coalescing into a sphere caught in Earth's orbit -- our moon. The original earth/moon relationship was a whole lot different than it is today. For one thing the earth's rotation (day) was a lot faster at around a five hour day. And the distance between the two was much closer: about 15 thousand miles compared to today's distance of 239 thousand miles. The separation continues to widen at about an inch and a half a year, and the earth's rotation continues to slow down albeit very gradually: currently about 1.7 milliseconds (thousandth of a second) per century.
What I find most interesting is the concept of what the Earth would be like if that collision never happened -- if there were no moon. First off the gravitational pull of the moon is the main reason we have ocean tides. It's really a combination of moon and sun, but because the moon is so much closer, its gravity has a greater effect on tides.
So what if the tides were a lot smaller? Tides and the gravitational pull of the moon has caused the Earth's rotation to slow down. The sloshing of ocean tides has slowed down this rotation to our current 24 hour rotation. It's not just the moon, there are other causes to slowing, but without the moon, the best guess is that a day on the earth 'today' would be just 8 hours long -- four hours of sunlight then four hours of night. Hell I'd never get enough sleep.
The speed at which the Earth rotates also effects the winds. At the speed of an eight hour day, normal winds would probably exceed 100 miles per hour, and hurricane winds would be considerably greater still. Evidence for this concept can be seen in the atmosphere of Jupiter. With a day lasting just 10 hours, storms on Jupiter have wind speeds exceeding 380 miles per hour. The strongest, category five, hurricanes on Earth (of which there were only three in the past 100 years) had peek wind speeds of less than 200 miles per hour.
And it also appears that the original collision resulting in the moon caused the earth's axis 23 degree tilt that's responsible for our seasons. (for more info see About Earth Seasons)
Life on Earth has evolved to a twenty four hour day, and a 29 1/2 day lunar month -- eg. the typical female menstrual cycle. So it's anybody's guess what life would be like -- and if there were men and women, how would they ever keep their hair in place with breezes in excess of 100mph?
Time line Earth:Counting Backwards from the year 2000
60 years ago - Invention of the computer.
130 years ago - Invention of the telephone.
180 years ago - Fossil fuel revolution: coal, trains.
540 years ago - Invention of the printing press.
5,500 years ago - Invention of the wheel, writing.
7,600 years ago - Sahara desert starts forming in northern Africa.
8,800 years ago - The first cities.
10,300 years ago - End of the most recent glacial period: the Wisconsin glaciation.
12,700 - 11,500 years ago - the Younger Dryas.
18,000 years ago - Cultivation of plants, herding of animals. Homo sapiens arrives in the Americas.
21,000 years ago - Last glacial maximum: ice sheets down to the Great Lakes, the mouth of the Rhine, and covering the British Isles.
32,000 years ago - Oldest known cave paintings.
35,000 years ago - Invention of the calendar, extinction of Homo neanderthalensis. Homo sapiens arrives in Europe.
50,000 years ago - Homo sapien arrives in central Asia.
70,000 years ago - Beginning of the most recent glacial period: the Wisconsin glaciation.
100,000 years ago - Homo sapiens arrives in the Middle East.
125,000 years ago - Beginning of the Eemian interglacial.
200,000 years ago - Beginning of the 2nd most recent glacial period: the Wolstonian glaciation.
250,000 years ago - First Homo sapiens.
350,000 years ago - First Homo neanderthalensis.
380,000 years ago - Beginning of the Hoxnian interglacial.
450,000 years ago - Beginning of the 3rd most recent glacial period: the Kansan glaciation, during which ice sheets reached their maximum extent in the Pleistocene, down to Kansas and Slovakia.
620,000 years ago - Beginning of the Cromerian interglacial.
1.4 million years ago - First firemaking by humans.
1.9 million years ago - First Homo erectus.
2.5 million years ago - First Homo habilis. Beginning of a period of repeated glaciation (loosely speaking, "ice ages").
3 million years - Cooling trend causes year-round ice to form at the North Pole.
3.9 million years ago - First known Australopithecus afarensis.
5 million years ago - Humans split off from other apes (gorillas and chimpanzees).
21 million years ago - Apes split off from other monkeys.
24 million years ago - Cooling trend causes the formation of grasslands; Antarctica becomes covered with ice.
34 million years ago - Gondwanaland finishes breaking up, with Australia and South America separating from Antarctica.
50 million years ago - India begins to collide with Asia, eventually forming the Himalayas.
67 million years ago - Asteroid hit Mexico, causing the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. End of dinosaurs. 50% of all species died out! Intensification of world cooling trend.
114 million years ago - First modern mammals. World begins to cool.
150 million years ago - First birds.
200 million years ago - Pangaea began to split into separate continents: Gondwana to the south and Laurasia to the north, separated by the Tethys Sea.
205 million years ago - The Triassic-Jurassic extinction. End of large amphibians and many reptiles.
235 million years ago - First dinosaurs, flowers.
250 million years ago - The Permian-Triassic extinction. 90% of all species died out! Formation of the supercontinent Pangaea, with surrounding ocean Panthalassa.
313 million years ago - First reptiles.
365 million years ago - The Late Devonian extinction. 70% of marine species died out! First amphibians, trees.
395 million years ago - First insects on land.
415 million years ago - The Old Red Sandstone Continent, also known as Laurussia, is formed by the collision of Baltica and Laurentia at the beginning of the Devonian.
440 million years ago - The Ordovician-Silurian extinction. Most marine species died out.
670 million years ago - First animals.
630-850 million years ago - The Cryogenian Period, also known as Snowball Earth - the worst ice age in the Earth's history.
800 million years ago - The supercontinent Rodinia begins to break up.
1 billion years ago - Formation of the supercontinent Rodinia
1.3 billion years ago - First plants.
1.6 billion years ago - First blue-green algae.
2.4 billion years ago - The Great Oxidation Event: the Earth's atmosphere gets oxygen.
3 billion years ago - Formation of the first known continent, Ur.
3.8 - 4 billion years ago - The Late Heavy Bombardment: a period during which the Earth, Moon, Venus and Mars were subjected to many asteroid impacts, after a relatively calm period of several million years.
4 billion years ago - First life on Earth.
4.45 billion years ago - Formation of Earth complete; storm of asteroid impacts.
4.5 billion years ago - Formation of the Moon: according to the Giant Impact Hypothesis, this happened when Theia collided with proto-Earth.
4.55 billion years ago - Formation of the Solar System.
Did you know that the Tropic of Cancer was something other than a nasty book. I didn't until I started researching the seasons and ran across a good movie that tells the whole story. The video link on the right pretty much explains the whys of Earths four seasons.
How they Classify Life - Anytime you read about biology or paleontology (the science that investigates life that existed in former geologic periods mostly by studying fossils) you're going to hear about the classification of life. Below is an easy way to understand those classifications ( as far as Eukaryota life is concerned anyway).
Kingdom -Animalia. Man is part of the Animal kingdom, the top grouping. The other kingdom is Plant.
Phylum -Chordata. This phylum consists of animals with spinal cords.
Class -Mammalia. Man is a mammal, a warm-blooded animal who bears its young live.
Order- Primates. This order includes humans and all apes, monkeys, gorillas, etc.
Family -Hominidae. The hominids include man and his closest cousins, chimps and gorillas.
Genus -Homo. The family of man
Species -Sapiens. You and me -- in biology a species is composedofrelatedindividualsthatresembleoneanother,areabletobreedamongthemselves,butarenotabletobreedwithmembersofanotherspecies.
To remember the order use this: mnemonic = Kids Playing Chase On Freeways Get Smashed
Our Evolution- As explained above, every living person today is a Homo Sapien. And every Sapien once had a common ancestor we'll call Bobby, that was the "first" of the species Sapien. Around 1 million years ago, a woman we'll cal Eve (of the species Homo Erectus) gave birth to Bobby whose decendent's DNA changed significantly over the next tens of thousands of years. At some point Bobby's decendents would find that he/she could no longer breed with of the other decendents of Eve -- their cousins thousands of times removed. This would mark the splitting of a species, identified when two lines of an ancestor can't procreate. For a while there might be a few crossovers before the absolute split, as in the case of a hybrid -- like when a mule species and a horse species mating results in a donkey. But like a donkey, hybrids are sterile, and eventually even hybridizing becomes impossible.
The below chart is an approximate timeline of the past times when our species then genus then family, etc. joined up with another species, genus, ... by sharing an ancestor -- Eve.
Million
What
What we
We met a common ancestor with ???
Years Ago
Changed
Still Shared
now, to
Homo Sapien - Now, that's us... you and me
1
Species
Homo
Homo Erectus - where we meet our "latest" Eve
2
Species
Homo
Homo Habilis -Handy Man -- the tool maker
2.5
Genus
Hominiade
Australopitheus - remember the fossil Lucy?
6
Family
Primate
Chimpanzees & Bonobos
7
Primate
Gorillas
14
Primate
Orangutans
18
Primate
Gibbon
25
Primate
Monkeys - Old World, Baboons
40
Primate
Monkeys -New World, Spider
63
Primate
Lemurs
75
Order
Mammallia
Rodents & Rabbits
85
Mammallia
Cats, Dogs, Whales, Horses, Pigs
105
Mammallia
Elephants, Manatee
140
Phylum
Chordata
Marsupials Kangaroo, Oppossum
310
Chordata
Reptiles (including Birds)
450
Chordata
Fish & Sharks
500
Kingdom
Animal
Starfish, Sea Urchins
590
Animal
Insects
going back further we shared a common ancestor with the plant kingdom, and then before that with
another domain of life like bacteria, and before that ... well, Nature only knows.
Strictly MY Opinion: I've believed in the science of evolution ever since I was exposed to it, so unlike the anit-evolution folk, I've put aside my early religious training in favor of science. I'm aware that not all religious people are anti-evolution/creationist, but as the only creationist I know are religious based, I'll be directing my questions, comments and criticisms to those religious beliefs --myths.
First off, I've never been able to understand the creationists objections to evolution. Why wouldn't an omnipotent God turn to evolution as His logical choice for creation. The most common reason against evolution is, "That's not what the Bible says happened". Okay, I and most people don't (if pressed) really believe everything said in the Bible is factual. For starters, contradictions are rampant in the Bible beginning with which was created first animal or man? Genesis 1 versus Genesis 2 --- which one is factual? The contradictions allow me the position... if one fact is not true, then why assume that either is true.
If it's not the Bible that compels Creationism, then I see an extension of the religious "conceit" argument --- Man is just too "special' to have been an accident, so God must have made him special, to order. Isn't that a lot like the old Church argument that the Earth is too special to not be the center of the universe? The Church got over that one, and will someday need to get over Creation as the answer to Man's existence argument.
A favorite argument from Creationists takes the form of irreducible complexity. They say that Man (or life in general) is just too complex to have randomly evolved. Creationist will point to something like vision (an eyeball) and say it's just too complex to have evolved on its own. In the Philosophy of Logic there's a name for this --- the argument of incredulity: "I just can't believe it, so it just can't be". I think that argument says a lot more about an individual's lack imagination, and/or education, than the facts. And besides, if only God has the ability to create complexity, then wouldn't He have to have been an incredible complex creation of Who? Or is it Whom?
There's a lot of evidence for evolution if one is ready to expend the effort to listen and learn, but I understand that nothing is easier to believe than the 'supernatural explanation of creation'. But easy is rarely best, and for the religious easy permits the cop-out of "It's not my problem, it's His to solve." This is most problematic when a problem requires more than faith for a solution... as in, global warming, war, etc. In these situations, I prefer to listen to experts over those who just purport a close relationship to God for their proof.
In summary, for me, God is smart enough to use a natural mechanisims (evolution) for His creations.
Human Blood Types: Even wonder about why blood type matters?
This is just something I wanted to know, so after I found out I'll share.
There are basically four types of blood A, B, AB, and O. The differences are the presence of antigens. So what's an antigen? It's like a special protein that's present on the blood cell. So if a person has A blood type he has A antigens on his blood cells. And likewise B blood people have B antigens. AB blood type people have both A and B antigens on their blood cells, but O blood type people have no antigens on their blood cells. There's one more type of antigen that can be found on any of the four types and that's the RH factor antigen. If someone has the RH antigen then they are RH + (positive), but if the RH antigen is absent, they are RH - (negative). Now that gives us 8 possible blood types:
A - A+ B- B+ AB- AB+ O- O+
So what difference do the differences make? A person can receive (recipient) blood from another person (donor) only if the donor blood has the same or no antigens. Example donor A- can give to A+ because they have the same A antigen and the donor has no RH antigen. But an A+ cannot donate blood to an A- because the A- does not have the RH antigen present in the A+ blood. If that were to happen (A+ to A- transfusion) the recipients body would attack the new blood with antibodies that would result in the new blood "clumping". Although clumping is technically different from clotting, it can produce the same result -- death. So proper blood typing of a donor and recipient is good because it prevents blood clumping, and clumping is bad.
The following chart shows which blood types are donor and recipient compatible. Note that O- is the universal donor because it has no antigens what's-so-ever. And AB+ is the universal recipient because his blood already recognizes all the antigens and would produce no antibodies to any transfusion blood type: A, B, or RH+.
Parents blood types will determine their child's blood type as shown in the first chart below, and a father's blood type can be determined as shown in the second chart which is used to determine who the father is on the Jerry Springer TV show -- "Who your Daddy?"
RH factor is also inherited. Everybody carries two RH factors that they inherited from each of their parents. If both parents were negative, then the child will be negative, and the same is true for both parent positives -- the child will be RH positive. However there's more of a crap shoot when the parents have opposite RH factors. In that case the child may end up either positive or negative. But only when the mother has a negative RH and the child has a positive RH is there a chance for complications and that's usually only in subsequent births from those parents. Here's what happens.
Sometimes when children are born there's a transfer of blood from child to mother. If this happens and the child is RH+ and the mother RH-, the mother will build antibodies to the positive factor. Then in a subsequent pregnancy with an RH+ fetus those mother's antibodies will attack the blood in the fetus terminating the pregnancy early on. Modern science provides methods of solving RH problems, but in earlier years before blood typing was understood mismatches would have resulted in unexplained miscarriages.
For a little history, blood typing in general was unknown until 1901 when A B O was discovered and RH was first understood in 1937. Today there are many more blood types identified with upwards of 800 known blood antigens that can cause many more genetic problems like hemophilia.
Bits to Bytes: This is the best example I've ever seen to demonstrate how big a byte, kilobyte, megabyte... really is.
Standard Measure
Metric Prefix
Numerical value
=
converted to time
computer talk equivalent
one
unit
1
=
1 second
byte
thousand
Kilo
1,000 seconds
=
17 minutes
kilobyte
million
Mega
1,000,000 seconds
=
12 days
megabyte
billion
Giga
1,000,000,000 seconds
=
31 years
gigabyte
trillion
Tera
1,000,000,000,000 seconds
=
31,700 years
terabyte
It also makes it easier to visualize other numerical value differences like if you spent one dollar every second, how long would it take to spend a trillion dollars? More than 31 thousand years.
