@ Hi-Lo,
This is how:
Starting from our Solar System,the distances from the sun to planet:
Mercury is 58,000,000km
Venus is 108,000,000km
Earth is 150,000,000km
Mars is 228,000,000km
Jupiter is 778,000,000km
Saturn is 1,430,000,000,000km
Uranus is 2,870,000,000,000km
Neptune is 4,500,000,000,000km
Pluto is 5,900,000,000,000km
Although some idiotic scientist in 2006 declared that Pluto is not a planet...i had a difficult time convincing my nephew that pluto is not a planet,yet he was refering to a book..
the Sun is the closest star from any of the planets in the solar system.
the closest star (or system) to our solar system is called the Alpha Centrauri which is located at 41,200,000,000,000km or 41,200billion km from Earth
Our Solar System where the planet earth is is in a cloud of gas and particles called the Milky Way Galaxy containing about 200 billion stars. This cloud is in form of a disk with a diameter equal to 946,100,000,000,000,000km or 946,100,000 billion km. the thickness of the cloud is 9,461,000,000,000,000km or 9,461,000 billion km.
As you can see the figures have now started to get out of hand due to the immensity of the separation!!
Once this happens another unit called the Light Year is used. This is the distance covered by travelling light in one year and it is equivalent to 300,000x3600x24x365km. This is equal to 9,461,000,000,000km = 1light year
As you can see the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000light years and its thickness is 1000light years.
The closest galaxy the Adromeda is located at 23,652,000,000,000,000,000km which is equivalent to 2,500,000light years from the Milky Way galaxy.
If you were to consider a star being born in say 10 galaxies away from the Milky Way then we are talking of a distance in excess of 260,172,000,000,000,000,000km or 27,500,000light years. If you see the light of this star in your telescope,then you are looking at the historic birth of that star 27,500,000 years ago!!!!
Remember the universe has trillions upon trillions of galaxies. At some point within a couple of hundreds of galaxies the distances are so immense that soon the light year unit gets out of hand. i dont know which unit the scientist now use.
NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB
...besides, the presence of a safe alone does not signify that there is money inside...