- Area: Astronomy Discussion -------------------------------------------------
Msg#: 153 Date: 10-02-96 03:35
From: Geoff Cross Read: Yes Replied: No
To: Walter Hicks Mark:
Subj: Micro-Martians
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->The evil gnome Walter Hicks cackled to All on 30 Sep 96 15:58:05
->We looked on:
WH> (now) bits of life floating around all over the galaxy.
WH> Perhaps Dr Gill could jump in here and remark on the probabilities.
Or someone else...
WH> If we assume a life-bearing bit of old earth could be blasted as far
WH> as Mars, what are the odds that similar bits attained solar escape
WH> velocity. How many times has the galaxy turned since that probable
WH> date?
It's time for my annual posting of a song I'm sure you must be
familiar with - I'll include it at the end.
WH> How far could the bits have travelled? Could earth have
WH> infected the whole galaxy by now, or just polluted one little
WH> (smeared) corner of it?
They couldn't have travelled far; a piece might have been able to
reach the nearest couple of stars since the most primitive
life-forms appeared on Earth a couple of billion years ago, but I
think that's unlikely (I'm too lazy to pick up my calculator and
work it out), and unlikelier still that it would find its way to an
hospitable planet. No, we haven't seeded the galaxy, let alone our
local group of stars.
WH> P.S. I suspect messages are not getting out of my corner of zone 2.
This one did, but I don't recall seeing others.
WH> Can you hear me out there? Do you wish you didn't?
I know - you wanted to be... a LUMBERJACK! Wait... wrong song...
Here it is, folks - the annual posting of:
The Universe
- Eric Idle/Monty Python
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough;
And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite enou-u-u-u-u-ugh....
Just
re-
member that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour;
That's orbiting at 90 miles a second (so it's reckoned)
A sun that is the source of all our pow'r.
The Sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at 40 thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side-to-side.
It bulges in the middle 16 thousand light-years thick,
But out by us, it's just 3 thousand light-years wide.
We're 30 thousand light-years from galactic central point,
We go round every 200 million years;
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this -amazing- and -expanding- universe.
[musical interlude]
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go - (the speed of light, you know);
12 million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth!
[slam!]
ÖÖ
Ö·Ö·Ö·ÇÇ
Ó¶Ó-Ó½½½
½
... "Speeding through a charcoal sky, observe the truth, we cannot lie."
-!- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20 [NR]
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