Basic measurements
every one who went to know space more so this parameters are essential to understand well.
- Astronomical Unit
1 AU (astronomical unit) = mean distance between the Sun and Earth ≈ 1.49 x 10^11 m
Pluto is the last Planet on Our Solar system 39AU= 5.811 x 10^12m
- Light year
Speed of light=300,000km/s
1 year= 365.25*24*60*60 =31,557,600seconds
Speed of light*year(s)
=300,000,000 m/s*31,557,600 = 9.4673 x 10^15m
1 ls= distance light travel in 1 second = 299792485 m ≈ 3x10^8m
1 ly= distancelight travels in 1 year ≈ 9.46x10^15 m ≈ 10^16m
- Parsec
1 pc(parsec) = distance from which 1 AU extends 1 arcsec ≈3.26 ly≈ 3.24 x 10^16 m
1 Mpc= 10^6pc ≈3.26x10^22m
Light years is the common parameters
1 ly= distance light travels in 1 year ≈ 9.46x10^15 m ≈ 10^16m
The mystery of light year
1 ly= if you are travel in a spaceship at a speed of light, to reach this distant you need to travel 1 year.
How far have we gone and where are we going?
Who has travelled to space?
Space flight is now a venerable industry. Humanity’s first space explorer, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, orbited around the globe on 12 April 1961, more than half a century ago, when Britain remained a colonial power and people were still using halfpennies to buy their fish and chips.
Since then, more than 550 people have blasted themselves into the deep black abyss, although not all agree on how far up you need to go until you hit space, so there is no internationally accepted figure. Only a 10th of those have been women, in big part due to sexist policies by Nasa and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.
What do we do there?
Even though we did not go back to deep space, humans have begun to live and work outside the Earth’s atmosphere, often conducting experiments on themselves to determine the effects of weightlessness, or microgravity, on the human body.
By 1986, the Soviet Union had launched the Mir space station. When it eventually fell to Earth (thankfully unoccupied) and burned up, our current space outpost, the International Space Station (ISS), was launched. Since 2000, humans have been living in space constantly. There are three up there at the moment, speeding around the globe once every 90 minutes.
Which countries have human space programmes?
Only three countries, China, Russia and the US, have human space programmes as it remains prohibitively expensive. However, they have provided lifts for space travellers from 40 countries, including a member of the Saudi royal family and even paying customers, such as South African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, aged just 28.
We’re off to the red planet? Hurray!
Don’t start the countdown just yet. To get to Mars, most people in the human space flight community feel we need to first go back to the moon. It’s the only logical step.
The moon has several advantages. It’s only three days away, rather than a several-month round trip to Mars, and has been touted as a location for a research station similar to the one in Antarctica. From their celestial laboratory, scientists could study the impact of radiation exposure and near-weightlessness on the body at a closer distance to Earth, but still within deep space, all while preparing for trips further afield.
So to the moon then?
Well. Not quite either. The Global Exploration Roadmap suggests first building a space station as an orbital base from which to send astronauts back and forth to the moon. This will look similar to the ISS except, instead of rushing around the Earth, it will orbit the moon.
Will we ever get to Mars?
It is a mammoth feat and it would be wise to expect serious delays. Where we go in space is decided by a combination of what people would like to do and the reality of time and budgets.
The idea of putting people on Mars has been around for a long time. If you read the policies, it is clearly a long-term vision without a date. But we probably are still lacking the technology to keep people for a long time in deep space.
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