Planets & Galaxies Destination Distance from Earth Time at Light Speed (light-years) Moon 0.000000038 1.1991888 seconds Sun 0.000016 8.41536 minutes Mercury 0.0000095 4.99662 minutes Venus 0.00000476 2.5035696 minutes Mars 0.0000076 3.997296 minutes Jupiter 0.0000666 35.028936 minutes Saturn 0.000135 1.18341 hours Uranus 0.000285 2.49831 hours Neptune 0.00046 4.03236 hours Pluto 0.0006183 5.4200178 hours Alpha Centauri 4.27 4.27 years Sirius (Dog star) 8.7 8.7 years Arcturus 36 36 years Pleiades Cluster 400 400 years Betelgeuse 520 520 years Deneb 1,600 1,600 years Crab Nebula 4,000 4,000 years Center of Milky Way 38,000 38,000 years Magellanic Clouds 150,000 150,000 years Andromeda Galaxy 2,200,000 2,200,000 years Distances to stars and celestial objects are immense. Cars travel at an average of 60 miles/hour, jets fly at about 600 miles/hour, and rockets travel through space at 25,000 miles/hour. Imagine that with new technology you can build a time machine that travels at light speed, or 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. The unit used to express stellar distance is the light-year, which is the distance that light travels in a year which equals 5.8 trillion miles. With the unit of light-years, we can begin to make sense of the very great distances between objects in the universe and begin our time travel exploration. The following list references how far away these objects are by referencing what was happening on Earth at the star emitted the light. Time Traveling by Star Light: The Hyades Cluster: 150 light years away located in Taurus The light that left this cluster began its journey just after the American Civil War The Pleiades Cluster 400 light years away located in Taurus The light that left this cluster began its journey while Galileo was first beginning to use a telescope to study the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn Betelgeuse: 520 light years away located in Orion The light from this red giant star began its journey during the time that Columbus discovered and was exploring America NGC 6826 (The Blinking Eye Nebula): 2,000 light years away located in Cygnus The light from this celestial object began its journey not too long after Jesus was born. Crab Nebula: 4,000 light years away located between Orion’s and Taurus’s heads The light from this celestial object began its journey during the height of the Egyptian Empire, when the three great pyramids were being built. Rho Cassiopeiae: 10,000 light years away located in Cassiopeia The light that left this red giant star began its journey when people were still living in caves and just beginning to learn about agriculture. Andromeda Galaxy: 2,200,000 light years away located in Andromeda, near Pegasus The light that left this galaxy began its journey 2 million, 200 thousand years ago around the time that human beings began as a species The Virgo Cluster: 65 million light years away located in Virgo This is a large group of galaxies, with approximately 3000 members and the light that left these stars began their journey about the same time that an asteroid was hitting Earth and wiping out the dinosaurs. .