A Planetary Neighbor

A fellow amateur astronomer and I, both members of the Auburn Astronomical Society,  headed to scout camp with our telescopes to share the night sky with several dozen Cub Scouts and their families on a perfect, moonless autumn evening. Our purpose was to introduce them to the cosmos in a new way.

I set up my telescope, focusing on the evening’s highlight: Saturn. Meanwhile, my colleague aimed his telescope at Vega, a bright star positioned high in the sky. Though we had only two objects in our lineup, each had a story.

As the families trickled in, my counterpart welcomed the first few kids to his telescope. Vega didn’t reveal much detail; stars, even seen through a telescope, tend to look like brighter versions of themselves. But my colleague was well prepared to share Vega’s story. He explained that it was about 25 light-years away and described what that distance meant—light that had left Vega 25 years ago was only just now reaching us. 

The group then made their way to my telescope for a closer look at Saturn. The kids expressed awe as they took turns observing Saturn’s rings. It’s hard to fully convey the feeling of seeing Saturn with your own eyes. Knowing the rings are there is one thing, but seeing them? That’s something else entirely. We discussed the composition of the rings; how they’re made up of countless icy particles. The kids were thrilled at the chance to see another world, so different from their own. 

 

Later in the evening, a parent asked a question that added a new layer to our conversation: “How many light-years away is Saturn?” I saw an opportunity to illustrate a crucial concept about space: distance. The gap between our solar system and the stars beyond is vast, and helping them appreciate that scale would provide a deeper understanding of what we were observing.explained how Saturn, though nearly a billion miles away, is still a neighbor in the grand scheme of the cosmos. I told them how light from Saturn takes only about 85 minutes to reach us. “You could think of Saturn as being 85 light-minutes away. The light we see from Vega, on the other hand, traveled for 25 years before reaching us. Imagine the difference in distance that implies.”

One parent chuckled when I described Saturn as being in our neighborhood, but compared to the stars, it’s true. If our solar system was a suburban street, Saturn would be just a few houses down, while Vega would be in another city. I could see faces light up as they grasped the concept.

When I set up my telescope at a public event, my goal is to provide a sense of context, a way to connect what we see with what we know. Space is staggeringly vast, and without relatable measurements, it's hard to grasp. When someone looks through a telescope at a distant star or planet, I hope to give them more than just a view—I hope to give them a way to connect with what they’re seeing. That night, I believe the scouts and their families found a bit of that connection.

Photo by NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team. 12 September 2019. https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/saturn-2019/