...Saturn?
Fear not, Jupiter and Saturn are not going to collide today. It just looks like it to the naked eye.
Your roving reporter (that would be moi) just looked it all up so you wouldn't have to. Jupiter is 886,736,536 kilometers or 532,041,921 miles or 5.927468 astronomical units (AU) from Earth today. Saturn, on the other hand, is 1,619,972,917 kilometers or 971,983,750 miles or 10.828849 astronomical units (AU) from Earth today.
So it's a simple matter of subtraction. Saturn is 733,235,981 kilometers or 439,941,588 miles or 4.901385 astronomical units (AU) farther away from us than Jupiter is. They will not collide as they seem to the naked eye to be doing. No, friends, they will be merely like ships passing in the night, one closer to us and one farther away from us. Very large ships, to be sure, and not really within hailing distance of each other.
You can rest easy. You can breathe now. It's all an optical illusion to us, the viewers.
FYI, class, an astronomical unit or AU is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and equal to about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) or 499 light-seconds (8.3167 minutes). The actual distance varies as Earth orbits the Sun, from a maximum (aphelion) to a minimum (perihelion) and back again once each year. The AU was originally conceived as the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)
For your further enlightenment, it takes light 49 minutes, 17.7347 seconds for the sunlight reflected from Jupiter's surface to reach us here on Earth, and it takes 1 hour, 30 minutes, 3.6473 seconds for the sunlight reflected from Saturn's surface to reach us here on Earth.
We ain't just playing backyard beanbag toss here.
In other news, today is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year in our Northern Hemisphere and the longest day and shortest night of the year in our Southern Hemisphere.
Your head can now stop spinning and you are free to return to your normally scheduled activities.
May I alert you to a small typographical error in "3.6473 seconds for the sunlighted reflected from Saturn's surface..."? This is not to detract from the wonderful character of your astronomical lesson. If I don't get to say this later - I would like to wish you and Mrs Brague a very happy Christmastime and all the best for the new year.
ReplyDeleteNeil, I obtained all of the figures from a site called the skylive.com and they were correct at the time I put this post together. Since the numbers are constantly changing, however, I cannot refute your statement.
DeleteOh, and P.S., a very happy Christmastime to you and Shirley as well !
DeleteP.P.S. - It finally penetrated my thick head that you were not referring to the number but to the word “sunlighted”. Good catch. I have corrected it.
DeleteVery informative. I'd never heard of the AU before. May I also wish you and Mrs.RWP a very Merry Christmas and all the best in 2021!
ReplyDeleteJeannelle, down here in Georgia and neighboring Alabama, people would say that AU stands for Auburn University!
DeleteI did some additional research and learned that the distance from Atlanta, GA, to the geographical center of the state of Iowa, which is the unincorporated community of Fernald in Story County, is 930.4 miles. This distance is almost exactly 0.00001 (1/100,000th) of an astronomical unit (AU) which I determined by dividing 930 by 93,000,000 andI in your honor have decided to call this distance a Jeannelle (LJR).
Merry Christmas and a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2021 to you and your family.
Spinning? Yes, my head is always spinning. However , there are many fascinating things around us. The solstice alone is an interesting event.
ReplyDeleteRed, actually all of us are continually spinning because, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in his poem “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day”, the earth revolves from night to day. I hope we don’t get too dizzy.
DeleteWhen the sun expands and swallows the inner planets, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn will have their springtime.
ReplyDeleteTasker, when the sun expands and swallows the inner planets, you and I won’t be around to see springtime on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
ReplyDeleteWell I had no chance of spying the phenomena. It was far too cloudy and it doesn't look like it'll be any better for a while.
ReplyDeleteGraham, I saw the planets approaching one another for several nights but missed seeing them at their nearest point. Lots of photographs by others have been widely distributed, though. Modern technology to the rescue!
ReplyDelete