- The Sun is one of about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, one of billions of ordinary galaxies in the universe.
- The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with curving arms of stars pinwheeling out from a center.
- The solar system is a little over half way out on one of these arms and is about 26,000 light years away from the center.
- A light year is about 6 trillion miles.
- If you were to drive your car at 75 miles per hour, it would take over 9 million years to travel a single light year.
- If it cost one cent to ride 1000 miles, a trip around the world would cost 25 cents. A trip to the moon would cost $2.40, and a trip to the sun, $930. But a trip to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system, would cost $260 million. -Monta Crane in Good Reading
- For the price of the 1991 war in Iraq ($100 billion) we could have gone to Mars 10 times over 15 years
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