I forgot how I stumbled on that 'Earth is a Peppercorn' page, but I stuck it in the Astrology thread in the Against the mainstream page. The author of the 'Planet Walk' mentioned that it would be a good antidote for astrology. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I did the walk for my daughters 2nd grade class last year during their solar system week. We walked around the outside of the playground and the kids were impressed with the distances. For older space enthusiasts, print out the planet pages from the Nine Planets site to peruse on your walk.

http://seds.seds.org/nineplanets/nin...neplanets.html

For instance, the page on the Sun had this interesting paragraph.

"The Sun's energy output (3.86e33 ergs/second or 386 billion billion megawatts) is produced by nuclear fusion reactions. Each second about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to about 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons (=3.86e33 ergs) of energy in the form of gamma rays. As it travels out toward the surface, the energy is continuously absorbed and re-emitted at lower and lower temperatures so that by the time it reaches the surface, it is primarily visible light. For the last 20% of the way to the surface the energy is carried more by convection than by radiation."

Frankly, I was shocked to discover that this much hydrogen is fused each and every second. It's ming boggling.

BTW, I'm curious. How many ergs in a joule? or watt? Which every it converts into. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
(Isn't a watt just joules/sec?)

Kizarvexis
"Incoming! Boisenberry at 3 o'clock!"
"Cobbler in the hole! Hit the deck!" - Thomas, Hero of the Pie Wars