Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for September 04, 2022

The confusing part is that the yard lines keep circling around the goal line.

Go for it! You can do it!!

In Feb. 14, 1990 the Voyager 1 made the first mass selfie of us. The distance travelled was even less then but still you need a goid zoom to find me on it…BTW: I’m the one with the Donald Duck-shirt (and his trousers) on the porch waving with a blue cap

how many giraffes is that?

Incredible. Just incredible…

I’ve no idea what we’re looking at here but if it’s supposed to be a football field, where’s the goal area, goal line, the penalty area, penalty arc, penalty spot, corner flag, halfway line, centre circle, touchline and kick-off spot?

Except they’re not headed towards Proxima Centauri. In all likelihood, they’ll not get close to star or anything else ever again.

There’s a solar system drive in the next state over. Earth is a few hundred metres from the sun, and Pluto is in a town 200km away. I think the scale is more indicative than anything.

I saw the Star Trek movie. I know what happens in about 250 years from now.

I’m confused. Is it Miles or Light Years?

You fail to take into account that this is an US based artist referring to NASA missions. Therefore, the use of a gridiron playing field as a reference is absolutely valid for the artist and his primary targeted audience. To take umbrage at this choice is an example of discrimination against minority of the population that uses common terms in a regional alternative to it’s common usage by the majority global population. The very fact this was raised as an issue demonstrates the fanatic and cult like status of individuals discussing a couple of silly and meaningless ball games that have no intrinsic value beyond entertainment.

Super Long-Distance NASA Fix Restores Voyager 1, Roughly 15 Billion Miles Away. The Voyager 1 space probe launched from Earth in September 1977, and is now around 23.5 billion kilometers (or 14.6 billion miles) away from home – and counting. NASA successfully fixed the spacecraft’s AACS module and now continues with its mission.

October 29, 2020, NASA re-established contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1977. The craft is now traveling more than 11.6 billion miles (18.8 billion km) from Earth. It is beyond the heliopause, or boundary region, where the sun’s influence ends and the interstellar medium begins.

Almost 20 years ago according to date of cartoon.

Here is a 2D scale model of the Solar System, with Earth’s Moon 1 pixel in size: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

150 miles from the nearest star? I don’t think so.

150 miles? Are you quite sure? That’s incineration territory.

Not to get too science-nerdy, but shouldn’t the two Voyagers be facing the other way?

Not “150 miles” to the nearest star. The diagram clearly shows that they are “150 yards” from the sun, which will continue to be the nearest star for a long time – probably the life of the probes.

Why does the apology go from yards and football fields to miles? Miles and yards are not compatible

Well, so much for our intergalactic space travel capabilities. When are we going to get warp speed?

Nothing like a little perspective about our place in the galaxy.

Interesting to have it put in terms a layperson can understand, and better yet, a dumb jock.

Feeling small on little old earth here.

snerk he wrote “uranus”…

Truly a triumph of science and engineering. This in an important graphic to emphasize how very, very, very, very … far away it is to the nearest star. If you are young and think that space travel will rescue us by providing an “escape planet” or “Earth II”, think again and yet again. Space travel is expensive both in terms of time and money. This is the only planet we will have to work with for the foreseeable future (no, Mars is not a viable option for large-scale colonization – ever notice how few colonies we have in Antarctica?). We have to work with what we have got.

Another mind blowing scale to consider. If the sun were the size of a period……the nearest star to us (Proxima Centauri) would be a mile and a half away from the period.