Does Size Really Matter.?....Let's Compare

Size Comparison of Celestial Objects

www.news-world.us...
A Humbling Perspective
'Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.'

This scale comparison shows 'the true place' of Earth and our Sun among the various giants of the universe. It is simultaneously a sobering and mind-boggling experience.

Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, the Moon...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/36bf73629a5e.jpg[/atsimg]
Look how BIG our earth is compared to the other bodies...


Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, the Moon...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e83fbac0af39.jpg[/atsimg]
oh no...earth is not looking that big anymore


Sun (Sol), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/93c0282f9b6b.jpg[/atsimg]
WOW..you can't hardly see earth compared to the sun...

coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu...
Compared to Earth, the sun is enormous! It contains 99.86% of all of the mass of the entire solar system. The sun is 864,400 miles (1,391,000 kilometers) across. This is about 109 times the diameter of Earth. The sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth. [color=GREEN]It is so large that about 1,300,000 planet Earths can fit inside of it. Earth is about the size of an average sunspot!

WOW...the sun is really gigantic isn't it....


Arcturus, Pollux (one of "the Twins"), Sirius A, Sun, (Jupiter?)...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/869af9833c08.jpg[/atsimg]
o.k. now the giant sun is starting to look small..?....

wiki.answers.com...
Arcturus is a red supergiant with a radius 25 times larger than our Sun.
[color=GREEN] If our Sun was replaced by Arcturus it's outer edges would reach beyond Mars.

Antares, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Rigel, Arcturus, Pollux, Sirius A, (Sun?)...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/626ccaf88607.jpg[/atsimg]
Where the hell did the sun go.?...
Antares is a red super giant. It is approximately 800 times larger than our Sun. If our Sun was replaced by Antares, it would reach out beyond the orbit of Mars.
[color=GREEN]Around 512 million Suns could fit inside Antares.

This is really getting hard to comprehend...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f0ac9f573a2c.jpg[/atsimg]
The Pistol Star is a blue hypergiant and is one of the most luminous known stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
The Pistol Star lies about 25,000 light-years away from our Sun. From the perspective of Earth, the region containing the star lies at the western edge of Constellation Sagittarius, the Archer.[color=GREEN] It radiates about as much energy in 20 seconds as does our Sun in a year.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0032ba524523.jpg[/atsimg]


o.k. this pic must be outdated because I found that:
VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star (in the Milky Way).The radius of VY CMa at 1,800 to 2,100 solar radii. To illustrate, [color=GREEN] if Earth's Sun were replaced by VY Canis Majoris, its radius might extend beyond the orbit of Saturn.
[color=ORANGE]It would take over 7,000,000,000,000,000 (7 Quadrillion) Earths or 7,000,000,000 (7 Billion) Suns to fill VY Canis Majoris.

WOW.....at this scale it really is hard to comprehend.....Well I feel very small right now...

"The universe is full of magical things,
patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
-- Eden Phillpotts

PEACE and LOVE...

[edit on 22-2-2010 by rainfall]

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[edit on Mon Feb 22 2010 by Jbird]

The universe is going to expand for ever, so Imagine what else is out there other than what we have seen!

What I don't understand is when a planet is created, how does it just start spinning... Obviously the moon is spinning as it has some gravity and the earth clearly is spinning...

It is too hard to comprehend!

Nicely done.

Does kind of put things into perspective, doesn't it?

Though in a certain sense, in stellar terms anyway, smaller is better, or at least longer lived.

When all those truly gargantuan stars are naught but dust and debris, our little insignificant little star will still be puttin' on the ritz, so to speak.

Still, pretty cool thread.

it's truly amazing.
all this living space,even in our own solar system.
and yet we still can't find a way to leave each other alone.
we need to advance our space travel abilities like yesterday.

reply to post by rainfall


Yes.

Just watched a documentary about Hubble Telescope images.

Nebulae (remnants of exploded stars, usually) that are 5,000 LY (that's LIGHT YEARS!!!) across!!!

Try putting THAT into perspectice!

Basically, in a hundred million years, or so (long after I'm dead, I suppose) that region will be a 'nursery' for countless new stars, and star systems, scattered across their "local' neighborhood encompassing a diameter of some 5,000 LY.

Give that more time, from OUR perspective as we measure it....another few Billion years... and perhaps, someday, a sentient species will be looking at OUR area of hte Galaxy, and seeing the remnants of what WAS our solar system, as our Sun would have ballooned up, and died, taking out most of the planets with it.

Our measely Human experience is just a 'blip' in time, in the grander scale of existence, and the Universe.

We matter not. We are less than bacteria....less than a virus....not even that significant.

Haha, that's a pretty cool thread. But when I think of the sheer size of the Universe, the last thing I think of is the different planets/stars since they probably make up only .5% of the space in the Universe. What I love, is the diagrams explaining the sheer size of the Universe through the measurement of space between the objects.
That always creeps me out when I think of all the filaments of galaxies stretching through the almost infinity that is the Universe. *shiver*

very good thread that does a great job putting things into perspective i hope this thread receives more attention

the wonders of our universe are incredibly intriguing and its a true travesty we havent ventured farther out in all these decades since we went to the moon


eventually it is inevitable that we will have to, i would love to know why we arent focusing more on it, especially with all this talk lately about rare earth objects and not being plentiful enough to keep improving technology

reply to post by weedwhacker

We matter not. We are less than bacteria....less than a virus....not even that significant.

Don't know if I'd go that far....

We're still a very young life form. Who knows what'll come to pass in the future, when finally we leave the nest behind. Not a one of us knows for certain.



[edit on 2/22/2010 by seagull]

reply to post by Freq Of Nature

Originally posted by Freq Of Nature
The universe is going to expand for ever, so Imagine what else is out there other than what we have seen!

What I don't understand is when a planet is created, how does it just start spinning... Obviously the moon is spinning as it has some gravity and the earth clearly is spinning...

It is too hard to comprehend!

Well, a plant isnt "made" in any real sense that can be easily understood, better yet, explained. Imagine a Big snowball, rolling down the hill. Every time the ball rolls a little more, it collects more snow and it makes the ball bigger.

conservation of energy laws provide the scenario that creates the spinning, and here is a link that is fairly easy to understand that explains why bodies "spin"

Why do planets spin?!

[edit on 22-2-2010 by drsmooth23]

reply to post by seagull

We're still a very young life form.

True....that was kinda/sorta my point.

And as long as we are limited to existing on this single planet, our species will continue to be vulnerable to possible extinction.

Nature holds no special place for us, just as she has none for any OTHER lifeform.

As far as we know, we are the only sentient species to have ever arisen on this planet....(now THAT would be another interesting thread discussion!!!)

Because of the huge scale of the Universe, and just by sheer random chance, the possibility of other sentient species existing is quite likely...however, when you consider hte vast TIME scales involved, it complicates things.

Meaning, a species that evolved, say, a million years ago, and have survived, will view us as we should be viewed....terribly immature.

Conversely, IF we survive (hundreds, thousands of years hence) and go exploring, we might encounter sentient species in very early stges of development --- I would guess along the entire spectrum of possibilities.

I'm not sure that Humans are quite ready for that responsibility, yet....with all due respect to Gene Roddenberry (Great Bird of the Galaxy) and 'Star Trek'.....

I suspect that an intelligence a million years ahead of us in an evolutionary sense isn't going to really care, one way or another about us... In a very real sense, they'll be godlike. With perspectives we can only catch glimpses of.

We may be small, and antares and the pistol star may be huge... but size isn't everything..,

invert for a moment, your perspective, say for instance a chunk of coal is LARGER, sure, than a pebble sized atomic bomb.. but what makes the a-bomb so powerful is what is on the inside, which are so small compared to the as-is-fuel, the piece of coal. but which has more energy?

Where am i going you may be wondering, well what i mean is, the force of energy a star can put out, yet the measure of strength is not in size, for the star knows only how to be a star, whereas a tiny little teensy weensy human can take all the knowledge you throw at him, and through the power of creativity, make just about anything.

i take that back, somewhat, what we have here is a symbiotic relationship, the stars provide the energy for life on planets, they endlessly give their service to others who are evolved and intelligent enough to make use of it, and we, the tiny ones have an intangible resource of ideas to turn tangible.. so me make visible, what is unseen.



[edit on 22-2-2010 by thaknobodi]

reply to post by thaknobodi


You are correct in your premise. which is why at this point in our development we should be a bit concerned...no?

Man has the capacity to destroy himself, only the grace of God, or sheer luck, has prevented that. In order for us to advance further, IMHO, we need to match the intellect with morality.

We need to look at technology and say not only "Yes, we can build it.", but also "Should we build it?" "Is it right to build it?" Intellect coupled to morality.

reply to post by seagull


I fear that, at present, we may be the equivalent of a group of children on the playground with access to loaded guns.

Perhaps we have evolved our technological capabilities faster than our ability to evolve beyond our petty, ingrained emotional responses, honed after millions of years of speciation.

Our intellect, in terms of our aspirations, creativity, and willingness to push the 'envelope' in inventiveness has seemed to have outstripped our moral capacity to cope with such power.

A wonderful old Science Fiction movie, from the 1950s, addresses this concept quite well (it is said to have helped inspire Gene Roddenberry, by the way)...title is "Forbidden Planet."

The mystery surrounds the disappearance of the "Krell", the indigenous intelligent species on the planet. All of their machines, and trappings of technology exist, but they are nowhere to be found.

Originally posted by Dramey

very good thread that does a great job putting things into perspective

Thanks Dramey...

And thanks to the MODS that acknowledged this thread...

I knew the sun was gigantic compared to earth.......but to think that seven billion Suns could fit into VY Canis Majoris......it's hard for me to wrap my head around that....

Fractal definetly fractal. Thanks OP great comparison.SnF.

always think this video gives a good perspective..

enjoy

u guys need to watch THE UNIVERSE frm history channel, is amazing the things you learn about our universe

its really amazing for everyone interesed in the way our universe works, and how life could exist everywhere ...

scientists think life exists in Europa, moon of Jupiter and titan, moon of Saturn

Quantum - you beat me to the VY Canis Majoris mention...

Rainfall - here's a couple of more pictures for the slideshow:


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/529c170fff58.jpg[/atsimg]



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[edit on Mon Feb 22 2010 by Jbird]

S&F Amazing thread! I love this stuff. It is astonishing that we are merely so little compared to what's really out there. So many questions that we will never get answered. I wish we knew at least 1% percent of what really exists..