Demeter Read Online Free Page A

flashed the lights twice and everyone grew quiet. She asked Ryder to close the blinds, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but he had to reach behind Cynthia to pull them down. He inadvertently pulled them up instead. Cynthia and Debbie giggled, followed by a catcall from either Randy or Joel (Ryder wasn’t sure which). Ryder tried again to pull the blinds down and almost dislodged them. Finally, the taller of the other two guys, the one with facial hair, came over. “Don’t worry, they’re just finicky,” he told Ryder.
    “Thank you, Randy,” Miss Li said.
    “If you will look at the ceiling you will see a representation of the galaxies in our part of the universe,” Miss Li began.
    Ryder looked at the ceiling and observed a number of spiraling groups of stars. He was surprised that the lights seemed suspended in the air rather than reflecting off the ceiling. The lights were turning slowly in a multi-spiral effect that seemed three-dimensional. He felt like he could reach out and touch the individual stars in the display. The several spiraling systems began to contract while one multi-arm system became the focus of the projection.
    “The system you see now is our own Milky Way.” The spiraling Milky Way grew to encompass the entire viewing area. “You’ll notice several branches at the outer edge of the Milky Way that spin in a circular pattern.” A red laser pointer was indicating the appendages of the Milky Way. “These two arms are of particular note.” The pointer flashed back and forth between two of the hook-shaped divisions. “These are Sagittarius and Perseus,” Miss Li continued.
    Cynthia raised her hand.
    “Yes, Miss Flores?”
    “How big is the galaxy?” Cynthia asked.
    “Good question. The galaxy is approximately one hundred thousand light years from one end to the other. A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year. Light travels at a little over one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. So, to put it in perspective, it takes light less than two seconds to travel from here to the moon. It takes just over eight minutes for light to reach us from Sol, your Earth’s sun.”
    Ryder’s mind was racing. “So that means that light would travel nearly six trillion miles in a light year?”
    “That’s correct, Ryder, and six trillion miles times one hundred thousand light years would be?”
    “Six quintillion miles?” Ryder was trying to remember if quintillion was the right set of numbers.
    “Very good, Ryder. Does anyone have an idea of how far that would be?”
    Randy jumped in. “A really, really long way.”
    Miss Li laughed. “That will be adequate for this discussion, Randy. Thank you. Let’s get back to the spiral arms. Can you see that spur that sits between the two arms?” She didn’t wait for a response because the pointer was clearly showing it. “That is the Orion Spur. The Earth sits in the Orion Spur between Sagittarius and Perseus.”
    “How far from the center of the galaxy is the Earth then?” Cynthia asked without raising her hand.
    “Sol is about twenty-seven thousand light years from the center of the galaxy.” Miss Li did something with the controls, and the spiral arm shifted to show the breadth of the galaxy. “You’ll also notice the galaxy is relatively flat, like a plate. Sol sits about eighteen light years above what could be deemed the center of the plane of that plate, if you consider that the plate is about one thousand light years thick. So it is pretty close to the center or equatorial line of the galaxy.”
    “Cool,” said the boy who had to be, by default, Joel. “So how many stars are in the galaxy?”
    “Our best estimate is three hundred and forty billion stars. Just in our region of the Milky Way there are over a billion planets. Of those, the habitable planets...” Miss Li hesitated. “Well, we assume that there are many planets that would be habitable.”
    Cynthia interjected. “I thought they didn’t know