1. A Journey Through the Universe By Brian Fontaine http://www.godandscience.org/images/crabnebula.jpg

2. Earth…. A “speck of dust” with just the perfect orbit, the perfect distance, with the perfect combination of elements to support life… http://www.msss.com/earth/earth.gif Earth: Diameter= 7,000 miles Orbital Period = 365.25 days Rotational Period = 24 hrs. Tilt = 23.5 degrees (towards Polaris)

3. But earth is just a speck, a million times smaller than the sun, but only 8 light-minutes from it, traveling at light speed (186,000 miles per second)

4. http://www.enterprisemission.com/ Our star, the sun, is an “average” star in the universe, one of billions in our galaxy. It has eight “more significant” chunks of debris orbiting around it we call “planets”.

5. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/astronomy/solar-system/formation.jpg It is believed that our solar system began similar to a galaxy…(or a hurricane). A cloud of gas (nebula) collapsed to form the sun, which began rotating. As time when on, the heavier dust fell toward the sun, creating the rocky inner planets, and the lighter stayed further away from the sun’s gravity, forming the outer gaseous planets.

6. http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC063368/the_asteriod_belt.htm Plenty of material is left over: billions of asteroids, comets, and interplanetary dust floating around, constantly threatening life on our tiny little planet.

7. Asteroids are just rocks orbiting stars or perhaps floating freely in interstellar space. They are not large enough to become spherical because their gravity is too small. Just “floating” in our solar system means they are traveling at 25,000 miles per hour! http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/our_solar_system/asteroids.html

8. Comets are balls of dust and ice that travel for thousands of years around stars in highly elliptical paths. They begin to make their dusty visible tail when they get close to the sun. http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/comets.html

9. Although our solar system is large to us, it is just a speck of dust in our enormous galaxy, the Milky Way. Here, a telescope takes a picture from the earth toward the center of the Milky Way. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/D_SUM_S/MILKYWAY.HTM

10. http://www.ccastronomy.org/photo_tour_HST_DeepField2.jpg This is a panoramic picture of the Milky Way in all directions around the earth. It appears much fainter to our eyes because they can’t collect light like a telescope can.

11. http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/Milky_Way_galaxy_sun05.jpg Our galaxy is made up of billions of stars. It’s so wide, it takes light 100,000 years to travel across it! BTW- light travels at 186,000 miles per SECOND!

12. http://www.ccastronomy.org/photo_tour_HST_DeepField2.jpg And yet our galaxy is just one of BILLIONS when we peer deep into the universe. Each galaxy you see here has perhaps a billion stars, each with the possibility of dozens of planets.

13. http://www.cosmiclight.com/imagegalleries/images/space/deepfield2.jpg And everywhere we look in the universe we have dozens of galaxies… each containing billions of stars, perhaps with dozens of planets each. This picture would be smaller than the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length.

14. Therefore, our current form of space travel is not adequate for exploring the universe. The space shuttle here would take…

15. Four months to visit our most inhabitable neighbor, Mars.

16. And 40 years to travel to Pluto… when it’s at its nearest point. Earth

17. http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery/proxima_cen.jpg And just 1.2 million years to get to our nearest star… Alpha Centauri.

18. And just 1.6 billion years to reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy! You are here! http://www.coseti.org/images/m31.jpg