Astronomy Picture of the Day

   [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2020 October 3
    [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest
                        resolution version available.

                             Driving to the Sun
            Image Credit: [3]Solar Dynamics Observatory, [4]NASA

   Explanation: How long would it take to drive to the Sun? Brittany age
   7, and D.J. age 12, ponder this question over dinner one evening. James
   also age 7, suggests taking a [5]really fast racing car while
   Christopher age 4, eagerly agrees. Jerry, a really old guy who is used
   to estimating driving time on family trips based on distance divided by
   speed, offers to do the numbers. "Let's see ... the [6]Sun is 93
   million miles away. If we drove 93 miles per hour the trip would only
   take us 1 million hours." How long is 1 million hours? One year is 365
   days times 24 hours per day, or 8,760 hours. One hundred years would be
   876,000 hours, but that's still a little short of the 1 million hour
   drive time. So the Sun is really quite far away. Christopher is not
   impressed, but as he grows older he will be. You've got to be impressed
   by something that's 93 million miles away and still hurts your eyes
   [7]when you look at it!

                 Tomorrow's picture: nearby stellar nursery
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    Authors & editors: [19]Robert Nemiroff ([20]MTU) & [21]Jerry Bonnell
                                 ([22]UMCP)
          NASA Official: Phillip Newman [23]Specific rights apply.
              [24]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                A service of: [25]ASD at [26]NASA / [27]GSFC
                           & [28]Michigan Tech. U.

References

   1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
   2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2010/SDO_2020Oct2_1024_0171.jpg
   3. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/main/index.html
   4. https://www.nasa.gov/
   5. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe
   6. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/
   7. https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3980
   8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201002.html
   9. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
  10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html
  11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html
  12. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html
  14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss
  15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html
  16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html
  17. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=201003
  18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201004.html
  19. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  20. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  21. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  22. http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  24. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  25. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  26. https://www.nasa.gov/
  27. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  28. http://www.mtu.edu/