Omega Centauri density question

[spacerings]

Can someone explain his analogy of 6 stars? I don't understand how dense this is. The quote is below and the link is to the page with the photo and quote.<br />http://store.spaceimages.com/omegacentauri.html<br />"Omega Centauri is so large in our sky that only a small part of it fits within the field of view of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope. Yet even this tiny patch contains some 50,000 stars, all packed into a region only about 13 light-years wide. For comparison, a similarly sized region centered on the Sun would contain about a half dozen stars."<br />

 

[kmarinas86]

(50,000/6)^(1/3) = ~20.274<br /><br />The stars in this picture would be approximately 20 times closer to each other when compared with stars neighboring the sun. For example, divide the distance of the nearest stars and divide them 20. Better yet, imagine the stars in our sky as if they were 400 times brighter. This would make all the brightest stars as bright as Venus, and the dimmest stars viewable in a urban setting brighter than Sirius.

 

[kcdclan]

what dose ^ mean in the formula

 

[kmarinas86]

exponent.<br /><br />where:<br /><br />2^2=2*2<br />2^3=2*2*2<br /><br />^(1/2) is a square root<br />^(1/3) is a cube root<br /><br />The cube root of the volume is the length of the sides if the volume were a cube. This length is the distance between the corners.

 

[harmonicaman]

Using the "^" is a quick method of indicating an exponent without resorting to the cumbersome <b>sup</b>erscript (and <b>sub</b>script HTML codes).<br /><br />Here's what I mean:<br /><br />E=mc^2 is the same as writing it E=mc².<br /><br />In the second version; just enclose <b>sup</b> in <> just before the exponent (instead of the [] used for UBB code) and click on "Using HTML". HTML works just like UBB, after the exponent you have to cancel it like UBB code, < /... >. You can also use the <b>sup</b> code for writing things like 1^st or XYZ^tm.<br /><br />A relative of the <b>sup</b> HTML code is the <b>sub</b> code for writing subscripts like H₂O.<br /><br />

 

[spacerings]

Kmarinas86, if you're still out there, I've been puzzling over this and trying to understand it. I think I finally understand your answer. <br />A website listed the nearest star as - "Proxima Centauri V645 Cen 4.2 ly".<br />So, I divide THAT by 20?<br /><br /><br />And one other question, if the nearest star is 4.2 ly then how can this analogy I saw on a website be true? I really need someone to answer on this because I wanted to quote it in something. <br /><br />"If you were so large a Being that the Sun and the Earth (including all of the actual space of distance between the two) could fit in the palm of your hand and you then decided to start walking, with such oversized Being strides (you would be walking much faster than the speed of light!), towards the next Star nearest to our Sun -you would need to walk for 19 straight hours without stopping (through empty space) before you would reach your destination to the next nearest Star. Most of the Stars you see in the night sky from earth, you would reach in 20-40 years of such walking.. not to mention making it out of our own Galaxy!.. to another nearby Galaxy. (For example, at that rate, would take you 100,000 years of walking, without stopping, just to reach the first galaxy nearest to us!)"

 

[kmarinas86]

<font color="yellow">"If you were so large a Being that the Sun and the Earth (including all of the actual space of distance between the two) could fit in the palm of your hand and you then decided to start walking, with such oversized Being strides (you would be walking much faster than the speed of light!), towards the next Star nearest to our Sun -you would need to walk for <b>19 straight hours</b> without stopping (through empty space) before you would reach your destination to the next nearest Star. Most of the Stars you see in the night sky from earth, you would reach in <b>20-40 years</b> of such walking.. not to mention making it out of our own Galaxy!.. to another nearby Galaxy. (For example, at that rate, would take you <b>100,000 years</b> of walking, without stopping, just to reach the first galaxy nearest to us!)"</font><br /><br />http://www.google.com/search?q=4%2E2+light+years+%2F+19+hours<br /><br />(4.2 light years) / (19 hours) = 5.80909639 × 10^11 m / s<br /><br />This is the speed the "person" is walking.<br /><br />http://www.google.com/search?q=4.2+light+years+%2F+19+hours+*+20+years+in+light+years<br /><br />((4.2 light years) / (19 hours)) * (20 years) = 38 754.1196 light years<br /><br />Correct.<br /><br />http://www.google.com/search?q=4.2+light+years+%2F+19+hours+*+100%2C000+years+in+light+years<br /><br />((4.2 light years) / (19 hours)) * (100 000 years) = 193 770 598 light years<br /><br />Wrong!<br /><br />So this is not entirely correct.<br /><br />The correct answer is:<br /><br />http://www