NORFOLK, Neb. – When considering the size of the Universe, it stretches the imagination.
Todd Young, professor of Physics and Astronomy at Wayne State College, said he recognizes that when discussing things like the size of the Galaxy. Numbers like 100 billion stars and 100,000 light years – part of the Earth’s Galaxy -- are hard to comprehend. For reference, one light year is about 6 trillion miles, or the distance light travels in a year.
Even our own Solar System, which includes Earth being about 93 million miles from the Sun, can be difficult to comprehend. That’s why Young, who gave a talk titled, "Beyond Earth: Understanding Our Place in the Universe and the Cosmos Beyond!" encouraged interaction while using props to increase understanding.
Young, who teaches physics and astronomy at Wayne State College while also serving as director of the Fred G. Dale Planetarium, said he often encourages interactive discussions and props when speaking to children.
The same principles were at use and were successful as he served as the latest speaker in Hawk Talks on Thursday, Feb. 20, at the lower level of Union 73.
Young said after a while, the numbers are so big and have so many zeros, that it can be easy to not appreciate how large it is.
And because many illustrations in books and on the internet are not shown to scale, people, especially children, mistakenly think the Earth is much larger in relation to the Sun than it truly is. As an example, Young showed photos where the Earth and the Sun were shown to be the same size.
In reality, the Earth’s diameter is about 1/100 of the Sun and more than 1 million earths could fit in the Sun. And when it comes to the Moon, it is about 240,000 miles from Earth, and at least 30 Moons can fit into the Earth, yet our Moon is the biggest moon in the Solar System in relation to the planet it orbits.
To give people an idea how large and proportional items are, Young asked various attendees to stand in certain spots, rotate in specific ways and hold various items. One of the features of Earth is that it is tilted at 23 degrees, which helps give it our seasons.
Young likes to emphasize observational astronomy, with a goal to have people be able to go outside, look at the sky and understand what is going on.
Todd Young Talk
Todd Young, professor of Physics and Astronomy at Wayne State College, also serves as the director of the Fred G. Dale Planetarium at Wayne State. He covered a range of topics during a Hawk Talk recently at Northeast Community College, including U.S. plans for new explorations from the Moon to Mars. (Northeast Community College)
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