This is a fine and informative article but really should not express measurements in awkward and outdated units like miles. The metric system is the language of scientific articles like this one, not to mention technology, medicine, and all the world's other countries except Liberia and Burma/Myanmar. A writer who cited a measurement of, say, 5000 km and was afraid of readers' inexperience with the system could use language such as: "stretching from Los Angeles to New York" or "nearly half again as big as our moon." <br><br>I understand that traditions die hard, but to be competitive in science and other fields, the US public will have to adopt the metric system.