Keep it in perspective

Holy sh!t Batman, That is one large entity! I knew we were small compared to the sun but I didn't realize that stuff could get as ridiculously large as that! That's like comparing the Earth to a pingpong ball!

Great post and I love the pictures!

Now, the real killer is the distance between all of those objects is so mind boggling that it really makes the objects' sizes immaterial.

Also it's illuminating to realise that if you represent the milky way as a table which is 8 foot in diameter and 1 inch thick then all those stars which we classically know about are closer to us than the thickness of the table.

Shook some cobwebs loose... back in 8 grade science class, we all had to do a written, then oral report about our solar system.

Like a adolescent, I waited until the last day, where I did maybe 2-3 paragraphs, on each planet and the sun... it wasn’t very impressive, but my friend didn’t even start, so that morning, he ask if I could stall giving my oral report... wtf... how do I stall... I didn’t he was the one that stuttered...

Anyways, our school had a huge straight hallway,... and least 300 feet long.

What I did, I put a piece of tape at where each planet was in real action ship to the sun. Scaled proportionately along with the sizes, I can’t recall the sizes, but an example one planet would be 10” diameter, while another planet would be 8’.

this took most of the class, surprisingly, the teacher was confuse yet curious when I dismissed the class for this little field trip, and his curiousity, he let me go do it.

My friend thought I was the best... I didn’t tell him, that because of his crisis, he took my Mediocre report, and because of both our procrastination, took it to a top notch level.

the science teacher said I was the best, that not only giving a report, but to develop a model for visualization.

And, what else that this experience taught me, and I first realize, I performed best under pressure.

Very illuminating <applause>.

<Now how big are you?>

Just a loose collection of a few atoms, really.

<What little thing upset you today?>

The realisation of being just a loose collection of a few atoms....

is this a 2-D simplification of the Total Perspective Vortex? If you remember in one situation Zaphod WAS the most important person in the universe - that universe being a simulation. (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for the uninitiated)

But thanks for the pictures, they do put a good perspective on size. I had no idea beyond our sun.

This is why I keep telling my boss - it's not that I don't care, it's just that I don't care very much.

You won't get on Opportunity Knox with that attitude! But our collective mind is pretty CR4wesome! ( Sneeky on for the catchphrase thread!)

Good post, Truman!

My 9 year old son's been studying the planets and these pictures would be great to show him.

'Couple of nights ago, I pointed out a star to him (didn't know what it was but I just needed to illustrate a point) and I told him that that was a star. I said it was probably about as big as our sun but because it was so far away, it looks so small.

He looked at it and looked at me and smiled. I could almost read his mind:

"My old man's gone bonkers!"

Woof! I've read descriptions of these relative sizes before, but having the illustrated version really puts it into perspective (so to speak...). But the real kicker (as someone pointed out) is the fact that these objects are separated by so vast a distance that there is no way to see the relationships in real life. The nearest star is a good many multiples of the solar system diameter away from us, after all. Sunlight reaches the orbit of Pluto in, what, an hour or so? But our nearest stellar neighbor is (if memory serves) some 4.5 years away at light speed. Thank you for the reality check!!!

http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/nearest.html

This website gives you the closest stars to us in correct order.

You , and others, are correct about the distances, we live in a mostly empty space and space flight while awake will be the most boring thing ever. That is why we have sci-fi.

And sci-fi has given us warp speed, precession drive, cybernation, and (thanks to Heinlein) generation ships, among other possibilities. Where we can go in our minds may be where we can't in our bodies, but the dream will hopefully live on...

for some reason it reminds me of Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"

big is only relative, nice comparison

Which reminds me, which is longer: a yard stick, a meter stick, or a big stick?

Well, a meter is longer than a yard, so I guess what it boils down to is how BIG is that big stick? Or put another way, how far is up?

Great graphic presentation, visualizing from verbal/written descriptions is much less effective.

this reminds me of a conversation i had years ago which was an argument about what numbers mean to us.

i can imagine 1: it can be one apple, or one car or one planet

i can imagine 2: it is two bananas it is two books it is one plus one

it is when i start trying to grasp the higher numbers (please no jokes) that, at one point, it becomes just a number, an abstract quantity for which numbers have been invented as special adjectifs.

how can i imagine what it is like to have lived 100 years until the day i have done it? then how can i imagine how long evolution takes to manifiest itself as a new species? and then to the time and space of the universe?

i like the way the pictures took us one step at a time from the earth to the great stars. it allowed us to have a relative idea of their size step by step.

Hi omw7,

Bet you could imagine 3 if you had a "huge" number, like 6, of bananas and I stole half of them from you. <runs away swiftly with bananas in hand>

Seriously though, the presentation by case was impressive.

-John

Now I feel so small.

But seriously, looking at the scale of reality don't our petty issues seem foolish?