Just as a lark, I added a new webpage to my collection: How Far Away is M31?. I translated the commonly used distance, 2,555,000 light years, into 48 other units of distance measure, from gigaparsecs to Planck lengths, and everything in between. I've got more, but just got tired at 48. Maybe I'll add more as time progresses. Have fun amazing your astro-friends with your knowledge that M31 is a mere 1.201x10^23 Gunther's links away!

Wow.... only a mere 7.837 x 10^-4 gigaparsecs.

__________________
MacTalk - The Australian Apple Community - iPod, iPhone and Mac.

Very interesting question.

One may consider if units smaller than the sun-earth distance make any sense.
Every space has a discrete 3D-spiral structure and the application of smaller or much larger units simply takes our models out of the 3D-spiral fabric of reality.

"Wow.... only a mere 7.837 x 10^-4 gigaparsecs."

I agree. This seems like the most proper scaling.

How about something like the kly (kilo-lightyear)?

Oh yay another scale to strugle with...kly omg. wheres a mac truck. This is to much for me...lol
Dont ya think we have enuff.. we've got mm, and inches, and pounds of thrust and kilo watts and.....hundreds more. hell you got 14 scales before you went to sleep, WOW!... <_< I'm just getting used to this metric system we use here. In my minds eye I can see a light year. It being the distance light travels in one year. Noteing that it reached us from the sun in just 8 and a tad minuts. That this solar system is about 9 hours across. Yes I can see a light year is a very long way. I can even amagine a thousand of them, a million, a billion...come on, get real....kly...How does this help me? :blink: :unsure: point, fathom, ........Zzzzz
How far M31 Umm, its getting closer as we speek. wheres my ruler?

According to Tim, its coming toward the centre of mass of the Milky Way at 100 km per second!

__________________
MacTalk - The Australian Apple Community - iPod, iPhone and Mac.

Yes, but we do not know what its sideways velocity is. [I have the impression that M31 is two to ten times more massive than the MW, which leaves the question which is moving towards which.

distance to M31: 1.487x10^22 Smoots and an ear.

__________________
Forming opinions as we speak

Whats that in Lunar Distances? (100 000 km longer than one light second off the top of my head)

__________________
My Webpage

How many links, cubits, yards, furlongs, Gregorian-light-years etc is that then, Tim?
Cheers
Ferg

__________________
<span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:10pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Optima'>Yet another blind watcher of the sky.</span></span></span>

All these parsecs and metres and cubits are all...blah. How about some interesting units!

Pull a Henry VIII, and invent your own units based on things that are common only to you. How many "Toasters" to M31? Or the distance in "cats" , or "dogs", whichever you have. How many "El Camino"s would it be to M31? Among my other suggestiongs:

-Ears
-Smiles
-Scarves
-Crackers
-Mascaras
-Martinis
-Fire Drills
-Geographies
-Donald Trumps

I wonder, now, just how many inches in a martini?

__________________
~ cogito cogito ergo cogito sum ~

Nothing in life is good nor bad; thinking makes it so.

-cucumbers
-squirrels
-spoons

to name just a few more units that I think should be adopted as SI

__________________
Astronomy for Beginners.com
Gavin Vincent Web Design

My turn... lets mesure the distance light travels in one year. and then call it a light year. but its really a distance. there could be a lot of them.,

How many sound-minutes? How many mars-light-years? How many in units of the distance travelled by a sound wave in water until a fish swims from one end of the English channel to another?

__________________
Limericks, written by me: http://limericker.blogspot.com