To keep things on our planet in perspective for the New Year 2017, a terrestrial "Earth" year can be compared to a "Galactic" year -- as Caleb A. Scharf has done in his Life, Unbounded posting at the Scientific American Blog Network in
Another 1/230,000,000th of a Galactic Orbit.
Scharf suggests there:
"As the solar year ends, let's try to stop being so parochial".
Our comment is, "hear, hear !!"
As written at the Wikipedia for the entry "Galactic Year":
"The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Solar System to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Estimates of the length of one orbit range from 225 to 250 million terrestrial years. The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 828,000 km/h (230 km/s) or 514,000 mph (143 mi/s) within its trajectory around the galactic center, a speed at which an object could circumnavigate the Earth's equator in 2 minutes and 54 seconds; that speed corresponds to approximately one 1300th of the speed of light."We are, galactically seen, part of a much larger "picture", so to speak.
The word "scharf" in German means "sharp" and a sharp intelligence indeed is at work in writing perspicaciously about the present New Year as
Another 1/230,000,000th of a Galactic Orbit.
Take a look there for some outstanding insights about life on our planet.
In the meantime, Scharf might consider applying his own wisdom further, perhaps depart from the blindered parochial focus that marks the mainstream, and look at our "galactic" (if archaeological-anthropological-historical) decipherments of Stonehenge and Avebury in our previous postings -- from a broad historical-astronomical point of view, of course....