The Sun and long-term planning.

Dear folks,

We are now in a great B&B near Port Edward situated on what is called the Wild Coast. That is the east coast of SA. We are about 175km south of Durban – our next destination.

In this area there are about 8 golf courses to choose between. We have made the decision to first play the Wild Coast Sun Country Club. The club is a part of a more luxurious resort and is one of the more expensive courses to play. I think that one of the reasons is, not just the luxury, but also that the course architect is Robert Trend Jones Jnr.

We had a tee time today (Friday 28) at 8 o’clock, but play was cancelled because of heavy rain. So today is a day to relax, explore the town and local life and think about the deeper meaning of life – if there is any – except for what we put in or make our self believe.

 When we started on our venture I promised myself that during the trip, I would not be on any news media. I would look forward not watching any news or commercials on television or tablet. What Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, is saying or doing, which candidate from the Democratic Party that will win the US Primary Election, what the Danish Prime Minister is doing to become the minister of Danish children (as she have promised), what status symbols the commercials are telling you that you need to own and how you need to look like to be accepted and live a happy life, I couldn’t care less.

But now, read the following – and then start to think.

A Danish newspaper has a weekly feature where children can ask scientists questions.

Martha a 10 year old girl asked this question: Is the Sun Moving?

She got an answer from Michael Linden-Vørnle, who is an astrophysicist at the Space Department at the Danish Technological University (the essential of his answer you can read below):

“Yes, Martha it does: “The Sun revolves around itself, and like the billions of other stars in our galaxy, the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way, where a giant black hole exists. We know from satellite measurements, among other things, that the Sun sets off at 830,000 kilometers per hour. Even it is wildly fast, the trip is so long that the Sun takes more than 230 million years to get once around the center of the Milky Way. That’s what is called a galactic year. Since the Sun was formed 4.6 billion years ago, it has reached only 20 times around the center of the Milky Way. Thus, the Sun is 20 galactic years old.”

Scientists have calculated that Earth is 4.54 billion years old, with an error range of 50 million years. Since the time of human existence on earth the sun have only made 0,0008 galactic year around the center of the Milky Way.

Now you can think about long term planning!

The sun is slowly getting warmer. It is estimated the in 1 billion years all water on the surface will have evaporated and life on the Earth as we know it will cease. And in 5 billion years the Earth will no longer exist.

Now you can think about meaning or purpose of life!