To quote Thomas Henry Huxley; “The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us."
Or to break it down in pictures…
Big Blue Earth
These are the smaller planets in our solar system, where Earth is the biggie.
The Rest of the Crew
Here Earth is shown alongside the Big Boys of our Solar System.
The Sun is Shining
This shows the comparison of all the planets in our solar system with the star that is the Sun.
Starry Starry Night
Earth is invisible at this range and here resides Arcturus, the third brightest star in the night sky, after Sirius and Canopus.
The Big Daddy and the Glitterbugs
Jupiter is now invisible and the Sun is but a dot where Antares reigns supreme and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. Along with Aldebaran, Spica, and Regulus it is one of the four brightest stars near the ecliptic (The ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun traced out along the sky in the course of the year.)
All stars except the Sun appear to the human eye as shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere. The Sun is also a star, but it is close enough to Earth to appear as a disk instead, and to provide daylight.
Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion (7×1022) stars in the known universe. That is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, or 230 billion x 300 billion in our own Milky Way.
Fascinating hey! Makes you want to just jump in a spacecraft and go exploring the night sky…Beam me up Scotty!!
So I will leave with the nursery rhyme by Jane Taylor…
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Outer Spacey, Starry, Universal and Sparkly Love
