Category: Science

Stolen from a post on Facebook:

SCALE MODEL OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

How big is the solar system? Scientists have placed the edge of the solar system at the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. The Kuiper Belt is an asteroid belt beyond Pluto (today, Pluto is categorized as a member of the Kuiper Belt) and about 60 times as massive as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Oort Cloud is the theoretical mass of comets, asteroids and other debris beyond the Kuiper Belt. This puts the solar system's diameter at roughly 1.5 light years across, or about fifteen trillion kilometers.

In order to put this scale to a size that can be better related to, the Sun will be represented by a bowling ball about eight inches across. About 7.6 meters from the bowling ball is Mercury, represented by a pinhead. Another 6.9 meters is Venus, represented by a peppercorn, and Earth is 5.3 meters further, represented by another peppercorn (the moon is about 6.1 centimeters from the Earth, represented by a pinhead). At this point, Earth is almost 20 meters from the Sun. Continuing past the Earth 10.7 meters is find Mars, a second pinhead.

Between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is about 41.5 meters from the Sun. However, the asteroid belt is mostly empty space. Thirty one meters past the asteroid belt, or 72.4 meters past Mars, is Jupiter, represented by a chestnut. To put this scale into perspective, Jupiter is 102.9 meters from the Sun and more than a city block from Mars.

After Jupiter are the rest of the outer planets: Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, represented by a hazelnut, a coffee bean, and a peanut, respectively. Saturn is 85.3 meters past Jupiter, with Uranus 189.7 meters past that and Neptune 214.1 meters past Uranus. Finally arrive at Pluto, represented by a pinhead 184.4 meters past Uranus. This point is one kilometer from the Sun. At this distance, the bowling ball is no longer visible, not even with binoculars. Less than a millimeter past Pluto are the Voyager probes.

Of course, while the planets do not stay in a straight line (the Voyager probes used a unique aligning of the outer planets to their advantage), they generally stay about the same distance from the Sun and from each other. So, while Jupiter and Saturn can be as close as 85 meters together in this model, they can be as far as 391 meters apart when they are on opposite sides of the Sun from each other.

The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, at 4.2 light years. On this model, it is a whopping 6,759 kilometers from the bowling ball that represents the Sun. The star Arcturus, which is 58,996 kilometers from the bowling ball – about four and a half times the width of the Earth – would be five meters across, longer than a standard pickup truck. Rigel, which is over a million kilometers from the bowling ball – three times further away than the moon – would be ten meters across, about the length of a standard school bus. Betelgeuse, the red giant in the constellation Orion, would be about 158 meters across – twice the size of an American football field. Yet, in this model, the Earth is just the size of an ordinary peppercorn.

– R. Atkinson

…in 1969 and then be all surprised some forty years later when he's disgusted with the state of manned space exploration.

From high above. Gorgeous.

If you look closely, you'll see dozens of black, spidery-looking things in these photos. They aren't Martian arachnids (obviously), but something equally as interesting. It is now believed they are carbon dioxide geysers, the dark color coming from the darker underlying dirt and particulate matter that's being spewed into the atmosphere during the spring thaw near Mars' south pole. Scientists aren't certain this is what's happening because nothing like this is seen on any other terrestrial planet, but based on the evidence it seems to be the most likely explanation.

Saturn's moon Enceladus, showing geysers spraying water into space that eventually finds its way onto Saturn and may be a big contributor to the planet's "E" ring.

Click to embiggen.

Remind me again why the human race doesn't need space exploration? And then when you're finished maybe you can then explain why we don't need art, or music, or literature…

The Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, which uses something called "drift scanning" to document the vastness of the sky, has been snapping pictures of the heavens for twelve years as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The Survey's findings have been compiled into a 3D map of space, picturing 200 million galaxies and "7 billion years worth of cosmic movement." The map will get bigger, soon.

I don't know about you, but watching this full screen (and happening to be listening to one of the Doctor Who soundtracks when I first viewed it) almost brought me to tears. Keep in mind that each of those blobs of lights aren't stars—they're entire galaxies. How can anyone seriously believe we are the only sentient life in such vastness? The thought that there is so much life teeming in the darkness gives me chills. The Universe is so incredibly huge, even if reincarnation were a reality and we "visited" only a single world during each lifetime, we could never experience it all.

I am humbled by the immensity of it all, and makes the fact that the a group of clever apes on a grain of sand orbiting an insignificant speck of light are arguing over who they can love even sadder, doesn't it?

Put on some music that inspires you (preferably through headphones) and watch (be sure to expand to full screen):

And thank you for making me—if only for a few brief minutes last night—a wide eyed ten year old again.

I honestly didn't think the sky crane was going to work, but I confess when it was confirmed that Curiosity had touched down on Mars as planned, I was as giddy as any of the engineers I saw on JPL's video feed.

Europa (minus the Pirate Twins)

Titan and Saturn

This is what true creation looks like; it's how stars and planets come to be. These are called the Pillars of Creation and they are immense. Mind-numbingly immense. Immense as in 4 light years tall, the distance between the sun and its nearest neighbor Alpha Centauri.