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Question of the Day
Question:
"Dr. Hal, how much bigger than the Earth is the Sun? Just how far away is it? How far do we go as we orbit? Do you know how fast we're going?"Answer:
330,330 times larger and 93,000,000 miles away. However, I should say that it's 3 million miles closer during the winter months. Our orbital path is 585 million miles or so long. That many miles for one completed orbit, you understand. Assuming you're still talking about orbiting the Sun, we’re going approximately eight times faster than a bullet travels. Enough about the Sun. You know, when I was a kid it seemed most other kids, at least the ones I grew up with, by and large knew most of this stuff. That's because, in that far-off time, the Russians had startled the West by putting the first satellite, sputnik, in orbit, and in the U.S. there was a massive campaign to keep "ahead of the commies" in Science by making everything "educational." On the playground we'd discuss rocket trajectories and evolution, I recall. The result of all this? A whole generation who came to maturity in an approved atmosphere of intellectual curiosity, and who weren't inhibited about trying anything themselves. Yes, the so-called "hippies." Aghast at the monsters they'd created, the authorities quickly took steps to ensure that no such troublesome types would appear again by "dumbing down" the American educational system, and as the Eighties followed the Seventies, by crafting the system we have now, to produce self-satisfied, "self-esteem"-filled idiots...
Askdrhal.com by
Jascha Ephraim,
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