Consider the 1-to10^19 scale on which the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy fits on a football field. On this scale, how far is it from the sun to the alpa centauri (real distance:4.4 light-years) How big is the sun itself on this scale? Compare the sun's size on this scale to the actual size of a typical atom (about 10^-10 m in diameter).

Beautiful! What a great exercise! I won't even check to verify

that 1:10⁻¹⁹ is an appropriate scale to map the Milky Way onto a

football field. I'll just accept it and go from there.

(4.4 light years) x (10⁻¹⁹) = (2.5848 x 10¹³ miles) x (10⁻¹⁹)

= 2.5848 x 10⁻⁶ mile

= 0.164 inch.

(1,391,400 kilometers) x (10⁻¹⁹) = 1.3914 x 10⁻¹⁰ meter

Research Conclusions:

If the Milky Way shrinks to fit on a football field, then

- - Alpha Centauri is 0.164 inch from us.

- - The sun's diameter is about 1.39 times that of a Hydrogen atom.

Playing with this same fun concept a little more:

- - The Earth is sailing around in its orbit, once a year,

about 0.000015 millimeter from the sun.

- - It takes light almost 27 years to travel 1 inch!

wow!