February 13, 2014 (Thursday)
I arrived on earth as it was orbiting the sun over 82 orbits ago. I have been on earth ever since my birth. I have not gone anywhere. Or haven’t I? I am one of more than six billion travelers on spaceship earth, as it travels through space, going around and around the sun. Though I have never been anywhere else except on the earth, I have traveled 585,000,000 miles every year. At more than 67,000 miles per hour. Whew! I’m a traveler.
Let’s see..585 million miles a year for 82.42 years..that’s 7,005,700,000 miles. Write it out: seven billion, five million, seven hundred thousand miles. Wow, am I ever a traveler!
Last night I saw the almost-full moon shining brightly in a clear sky. It’s been traveling right along with us passengers on earth all this time. Where we go, it goes–only it has to keep moving around and around us. If there was a “man in the moon” he would probably say he’s getting tired.
I never would have discovered all this on my own. Scientists helped me. We have not always listened to the scientists. On this date in 1633 Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before Inquisition for professing belief that earth revolves around the Sun. He was found guilty and was forced to denounce the idea, then sentenced to life imprisonment under house arrest. All this happened as the astronomer and all his accusers and judges were traveling around the sun at unbelievable speed. The earth is a speck in the universe, but a lot happens here–not all of it good.