PV Gap

Leonard Said:

If I went in the solar system could I light a match? And would the flam go out?

We Answered:

I don't think you mean "in the solar system", because you are in the solar system right now - the Earth is part of the solar system and you can light a match on Earth.

I think you mean "outer space", outside the Earth's atmosphere.

If you were in a space suit outside a spaceship with an atmosphere, then the match would not light - flame needs oxygen and there is none in space.
If you were inside a spaceship, you could light a match because there would be air and oxygen for the flame to burn. But if it was a zero-gravity environment the flame would be spherical because there would be no "up" for the hot air to go - its this movement of the hot air that brings fresh oxygen to the fire. In zero g the flame would burn for a short time and then smother itself.

Stephanie Said:

If we develop spacecraft that can take humans to nearby solar systems at a few percent of the speed of light,?

We Answered:

the Milky Way is about 100,000 ly in diameter. So at 0.01c we could traverse it in about 10 million years. But we wouldn't have to go all the way across to get to every star because the sun is not way out on the edge. So if we could do 0.02c it would only take a few million years.

Mike Said:

What is the size of our solar system (in light years or otherwise)?

We Answered:

Surprisingly, there is no total agreement about the size of our Solar System. Some say it's defined by the orbit of the outermost planet (used to be Pluto), while others say it's where the Sun's heliosphere ends. Then there's the definition that I personally favor -- the Oort Cloud of comets.

Here's a breakdown of the three major sizes favored:
Pluto orbit - 5,900^6 km
Heliosphere - 2.2^10 km
Oort Cloud - 1.5^13 km (1.6 light years)

Terrence Said:

How big is our solar system in light years?

We Answered:

The solar system has two different meanings.
1) The area enclosed by the planets. = about half a light day
2) The area that is dominated by the sun's gravity. = 2.1 light years

The outer planet Uranus is only 30 times further away from the sun than the earth.

It was known that comets orbit the sun with periods of 30,000 years or more. That means a distance of about half a light year give or take.

It is speculated the comets are members of a vast population of objects in the Oort Cloud. And that occasionally they are deflected into the inner solar system.

One mechanism for such deflections could be the passage of a star near to our sun that causes disturbances to Oort Cloud objects, or that even swaps some of its "Oort Cloud" objects to us.

At present the minimum distance to another star is 4.2 light years and therefore the sun gravitationally dominates a volume of space that has a radius of 2.1 light years. And that is therefore the maximum extent of our solar system. Objects that orbit our sun at a greater distance than that will be captured by a neighbor star.

Tracey Said:

How many light years is the next solar system from us?

We Answered:

Well the nearest known planetary system is Epsilon Eridani which is 10.5 light years away, at the moment they haven't detected any planets around Alpha Centauri yet

Stephanie Said:

Why Another solar system? Light Years?

We Answered:

We are discovering planets orbiting other stars on a regular basis these days (the first detected extra-solar planet was discovered in the late 1990's). All that is required for something to be a solar system is at least one star, and at least one planet orbiting it. So yes, there are other solar systems.

The gravitational effects of the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is significantly less than that of a hummingbird 1000 km away from you. The gravitational effects of a planet around that star, would be even less, for both mass and distance come into play for gravity.

I think we can safely rule out other solar systems as having any impact of storm formations on our planet.

A light year is the distance light travels in one year:

186,000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.25 for miles

(multiply that anser by 1.609 for kilometers).