3 ms·
As others have said, its not quite the same as the Sun's output, but it is still an incredible amount of light. I have studied blazars fairly extensively in th
by cuSetanta 4y ago
As others have said, its not quite the same as the Sun's output, but it is still an incredible amount of light.
I have studied blazars fairly extensively in the past and you are right that the brain cant really fathom the 'real world' appearance of these things. I resort to just thinking in terms of number of photons and avoid thinking about the rest, as it tends to result in a lot of existential dread and drinking.
- dredmorbius 4y agoOne way of thinking about this is in terms of incident sunlight at Earth's orbit. A trillion is a rather large number. Some quick maths says that 1,000 trillion cm^2 is 100,000 km^2, or a region roughly 315 km on a side (195 miles), or a circle with a radius of about 126 km (77 mi). Alternatively, if you consider sunlight falling on a patch of ground for one second, the amount reaching it over 1 trillion seconds would take about 32,000 years. So think in terms of a very large magnifying glass (I'd suggest considering a Fresnel lens for economy's sake), or a very long-term accumulator.