3 ms·
They could not fathom how far the objects in the sky were from them.
by philistine 6y ago
They could not fathom how far the objects in the sky were from them.
- avmich 6y agoThey had to estimate distance to the Sun. From that they could have a rough scale... admittedly, ~ 3e7 (seconds in year) * 3e8 (meters per second, speed of light) * 4 ~ 4e16 m (approx. 4 light years) is significantly bigger than 1.5e11 (Earth-Sun distance), so it's still hard to accept - interstellar distance (Sun to a closest star) is about 300 000 times bigger than Earth-Sun distance...