QQC 2

"so far from our own Sun that it's not even the brightest star in the sky. It is a remarkable thought that that distant tiny twinlde has enough gravity to hold all these comets in orbit It's not
a very strong bond, so the comets drift in a stately manner, moving at only about 220 miles an hour. From time to time some of these lonely comets are nudged out of their nonnal orbit by some slight gravitational perturbation-a passing star perhaps. Sometimes tlley are ejected into the emptiness of spacel never to be seen again, but sometimes they all into a long orbit around the Sun. About three or four of these a year, lmown as long-period comets, pass through the inner solar system. Just occasionally these stray visitors smack into something solid, like Bartll. That's why we've come out here now-because the comet we have come to see has just begun a long fall toward the center of the solar system. It is headed fori of all places, Manson, Iowa It is going to talce a long time to get there-three or four million years at least-50 we'll leave it for now,
and return to it much later in the story."



I find it interesting that so much is going on the outside of our galaxy and we can't even see it. It's unimaginable to think that meteors could be traveling towards us at 100,000,000 miles an hour and we wouldn't even be aware of it. Those who are aware of it tend to ignore it because it is either too far away or it is unlikely to happen. If i had this type of knowledge that something this dangerous could possibly be on an intercept course for earth i would be very concerned. Its amazing to think how small we are compared to the rest of the galaxy. For example if you compared humans to earth, we would be nothing to it. Now if you compared the earth to sun, the earth is nothing. Comparing the sun to the milky way the sun would make the sun insignificant. If you compared the milky way to some of the neighboring galaxies, the milky way is either tiny or incomparable due to the massive size differences. It's amazing to think that the universe is so big and our tiny little planet is nothing compared to it all.