Visual scale of planets and other celestial bodies...

Being a visual person by nature, things like this make it much easier for me to "wrap my head around" stuff- much easier for me than reading some scientific paper about how "Planet A is 8.3476112 times bigger than Planet B"
Anyway, take notice of how small Earth keeps getting with each picture-Yikes!!





















Source: blame.ca...

I love looking at this stuff, puts our existence sort of in perspective.

We did a lab once in astronomy class where we positioned ourselves in relation to the size and distance to the planets the Earth being a pea. Obviously we were outside.

reply to post by Skippy1138


Two videos I love on this topic -
Basically just a video of what you posted:


3D perspective of the size of the universe in general:

Uranus is bigger than I thought! Antares that is huge, if it had a planet in orbit around it in the green zone would it have giants on it lol?

reply to post by Praetorius


Great vids-thanks for sharing! I especially like "You Are Here" and the fact that they used music from "The Black Hole"

"“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” — Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell

I think that pretty much sums it up....

I seen a much better thread on ATS last year showing the size and distence of objects in our universe it was amazing, but I cant find the thread, ( I would love to be able to show my son, who is doing a project on the universe in school at the moment)

Originally posted by Lucifersjester
I seen a much better thread on ATS last year showing the size and distence of objects in our universe it was amazing,

Gee, thanks!

reply to post by Skippy1138


"I don't care who you are, that there's funny"

I appreciated your thread very much. Now to really spin things, you might have heard that they did some modelling of the growth/development of the universe some time back, and what they came up with resembles a neuron or whatnot (this will get you started - sprott.physics.wisc.edu...).

Now, have you seen the Men in Black movies? I think it's the end of the first one where they have an expanding view of the universe that shrinks us to infantesimalism...what if they nailed it? What if all we know of as the universe, so big, so vast, is but the tiniest part of a single cell in the mind of what we call "god"?

And then, what if it just keeps going, like one of those russian nesting dolls?

I think I just divided by zero...

Love this!

Here's another video. Watch full screen.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Wow- nice find BH-beautiful!
I don't know how anyone could watch something like that and still be convinced we are completely 'alone" in the Universe...

reply to post by Praetorius


I may be wrong, recalling from memory here, but weren't there reports that some of the early astronauts had "psychological issues' when they got back, because having been up there and seeing first-hand how miniscule we really are, their psyche had a hard time processing it?

antares is HUGE

reply to post by Skippy1138


Awww sorry dude if I offended you your post is very nice too

reply to post by Skippy1138


S & F

When I first saw this (a while back) I thought, "Wow...what a way to put us in our place"

I love showing this to people...it seems that as people gain a better perspective of our 'place' in the universe, they can allow their minds to accept that we could not POSSIBLY be the only life in this universe.