Knowledge

If Andromeda is the closest galaxy to us, why have we not started exploring it yet?

A lot of people have already given a sufficient answer but I really like talking about the scale of the Universe. Let me give you some comparisons so you can really appreciate the distances at play here:

Average distance between the Sun and Earth:

150,000,000 km (also known as an astronomical unit or AU)

Average distance between the Sun and Neptune:

4,500,000,000 km (30 AUs)

Distance between the Sun and the next closest star, Proxima Centauri:

4.24 light years (268,770 AU)

The diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy:

+100,000 light years (6,324,000 AU)

If the distance between the Sun and Neptune was shrunk down to one inch, the Milky Way would be the size of North America.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2,500,000 light years away. That means it would take 2.5 million years to get there if you could travel at the speed of light. That’s 25 times the diameter of the Milky way.

So we have Sun to Neptune at one inch long (which took the Voyager 2 probe over a decade to travel) and the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy is 25 North Americas across. It would take Voyager 2 over 70,000 years to travel 4.24 light years. It would take 41 billion years for Voyager 2 to reach the Andromeda Galaxy.

Related Posts

If a planet about 10 light years away from Earth had an all-out nuclear war (10 years ago), would we be able to detect it?

No. I’m not sure if this is still true or not, but a number of years ago, I heard from one astronomer who said “If there is an…

Did CERN create gold from lead?

Yes, but do not think of the alchemist’s dream – This was not about riches. In May of 2025, scientists at CERN confirmed it. When beams of lead ions are…

Why don’t tank crews just run over enemies instead of shooting them when they’re close by?

We do, but it doesn’t happen as often as you might think. [Above is a cutaway view of the Abrams driver’s compartment. Perfectly comfortable for man of average…

If all the animals in the world fought all the humans with our current tech without nukes, who would win?

First things first. Civilians? We’re dead. We’re all dead. The biggest danger isn’t: Sure, some people will get trampled to death by deer. Some will die to predators….

Which element on the periodic table seems too weird to be natural?

Bismuth. Typically, bismuth looks like this: (It looks a bit like a big piece of meat wrapped in foil, doesn’t it?) But under certain conditions, it looks like…

If a gamma-ray burst hit Earth, would we be able to realize it even happened to us due to its speed?

The problem is speed doesn’t matter. We wouldn’t know until after it hit us. Gamma-ray bursts move at the speed of light. No warning system could alert us…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *