Carl Sagan's Novel - Contact!

I'm reading Dr. Carl Sagan's fiction novel, Contact.  

You can find the Contact book on Amazon.com here:

Click here for the Amazon.com "Contact" web page.

I love this book for several reasons.  Although it tells a story, it allows Dr. Sagan to teach us a great deal of Science, particularly Astronomy which was his specialty.  

Astronomy is fascinating because it is the biggest picture we can imagine.  When you begin to grasp the size of the solar system, the Milkyway Galaxy, and think about our place in the Universe, it is mind blowing.  It may not be infinite (according to Einstein) but it is so big it may as well be.  BTW, Contact was published in 1985 and was made into a movie in 1997.  Today (3/17/17) the movie is available on Netflix.  I recommend it highly, particularly the first few minutes of the film which gives you the scope of the known Universe.  It's tremendous computer graphics, and shows you THE BIG PICTURE!

Astronomical distances are so big astronomers have to resort to an unusual yard stick to measure it.  Their yard stick is called a, "light-year".  Most of us have heard of a light year, but do you know how big it is?  A light year is the distance light can travel in one year.  We know light travels 186,000 miles in one second, and there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 365 days in a year.  Therefore, there are 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 = 31,536,000 seconds in a year.   Now, multiply that times 186,000 and we should have our distance in miles.

186,000 miles per second x 31,536,000 seconds per year  =  5,865,696,000,000 miles per year !!!!!

One light year is well over 5.8 Trillion miles, or if you prefer, it's over 5.8 Million Million miles, and light can travel that distance in one year.

Now the nearest star, other than our sun, is Alpha Centauri (AC).   I learned in Contact that AC is approximately 4.25 light years from us.   Let's do the math:

4.25 light years x 5,865,696,000,000 miles per light year =  24,929,208,000,000 miles

This means our nearest star is almost 25 Trillion miles away, and if we wanted to send a message to a planet circling AC, then it would take 4.25 years to get there and another 4.25 years for their reply to get back to us, making a round trip of 8.5 years just to say, Hello!

Let's just hope that our side of the planet is facing towards AC when the reply comes back!  If we are facing away from AC when the reply message arrives, we will miss it!!!  (Remember the earth rotates once each day, so it turns away from AC for 12 hours at a time.)   The Earth's rotation is a problem for inter-space travel communication as well.


Have an opinion?  What do YOU think?   Leave a comment!!!


R. Allan Worrell
Author:  Father John's Gift
E-mail:  alw314@yahoo.com