Impressed by Size, Are We?

Tiny

Whoa. You people really like imagining how big things are, don't you?

Yesterday's traffic for the earth-sun distance post was insane,* and would have totally blown my mind had it not happened once before. As some of you may remember, almost a year back I made a little video that got a whole lot of attention, it too focusing on relative astronomical scales, so it's not difficult to notice a trend going on here. 

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Tagged Astronomy Blogs Planets Scale

How Far Away is the Moon? A Visualization.

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As discussed on a recent episode of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, an asteroid named 2005 YU55 whipped past the earth on Nov 8 at about 29,000 mph. At 1,300 ft wide, things wouldn't have been pretty had it hit us. Terrifyingly, the asteroid came so close to our planet that it was within the orbit of the moon!

So did anybody feel the breeze as it passed?

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Tagged Apollo Asteroid Astronomy Earth Moon Scale Space Travel

What Would Neptune Look Like if it Orbited Earth? (Animation)

Scale
Scale (video below)
by Brad Goodspeed

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING VIDEO DOES NOT REPRESENT THE ENTIRE NIGHT SKY, or at least it doesn't anymore. I've updated the video to omit the foreground landscape in an effort to account for an error in perspective. Unfortunately, due to my error, websites are widely reporting that Jupiter would fill the entire night sky, but it wouldn't.  What's depicted here is a much narrower perspective than the previously mentioned 62 degrees, something that I imagine could be calculated by people much brighter than I. I imagine this view is closer to what you'd see through some very weak binoculars, but that's just a guess.  For a somewhat technical explanation of what was wrong with the original version of this video, and what that realization can teach us about skepticism, please read this.

ORIGINAL POST

Here's an animation I did to make you feel small.

While watching the video of the lunar eclipse I posted the other day I was looking at the curvature of the earth's shadow on the moon.  It made me think about how large the earth might look if an exact copy of it was up there instead of the moon. Soon curiosity got the better of me, and I was animating!

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Tagged Animation Astronomy Planets Scale

The Scale of the Universe

via newgrounds.com

I've posted this before on Facebook, and I'm not sure anyone was interested, but I can say with unambiguous certitude that they really frickin' should be.

Excuse the crappy illustration, but these scales are more or less accurate. When you look at the difference between the range of sizes we feel comfortable defining versus those we can't even comprehend... well, it should boggle the mind.

Something about posting it on Posterous messed up the flash movie a little, but it still works.  Take some time and play; and really consider nature's utter and complete awesomeness.

Tagged Awesome Galaxy Macro Micro Nano Scale Science Size Universe
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