13 ms·

One of my favorite visualizations of the scale of the solar system is from Stephen Hawking's Genius. https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hawking_genius_

by j_m_b 1y ago

One of my favorite visualizations of the scale of the solar system is from Stephen Hawking's Genius. https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hawking_genius_ep06_clip03/where-are-we-ch-3-solar-eclipse-genius-by-stephen-hawking/ https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/hawking_genius_ep... It's a hands-on, practical example of how far things are away that we can easily visualize. I highly recommend the rest of the series as well. It's one of the best science shows ever produced. It shows the practical path of scientific discovery. You can watch is on the PBS app, which requires a $60 a year pass. Highly worth it. (I have no affiliation with PBS)

Kuyawa 1y ago
I've always used this aprox dimensions: Sun diam 1,400,000 km Eth diam 13,000 km Sun dist 150,000,000 km Mon diam 3,500 km Mon dist 300,000 km Lets divide it all by 1M. So if the sun is 1.4m in diameter, it would be located 150m from earth which would be 13mm in diameter and the moon would be 3.5mm located 0.3m from earth Simply put, imagine a yellow beach ball the size of a washing machine located a block and a half away from your house, a blue marble being the earth on one side of your keyboard and a peanut being the moon on the other side
- Kuyawa 1y ago
  Now, using the basketball 24cm (earth) and tennis ball 6.5cm (moon) comparison, they would be separated by 7m in your living room and the sun would be 13m tall (a cherry tree) located at 3km from your house
socalgal2 1y ago
Not the same but related? Powers of 10 by Eames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 Interestingly, that Hawking visualization makes all the same affordances mentioned in the 1 pixel visualization. They show the earth and moon to scale, then the video shows an aerial view with all the planets much too large. Jupiter is 2x the size of the sun. Saturn and its rings 2x that.

by j_m_b 1y ago

Kuyawa 1y ago

I've always used this aprox dimensions: Sun diam 1,400,000 km Eth diam 13,000 km Sun dist 150,000,000 km Mon diam 3,500 km Mon dist 300,000 km Lets divide it all by 1M. So if the sun is 1.4m in diameter, it would be located 150m from earth which would be 13mm in diameter and the moon would be 3.5mm located 0.3m from earth Simply put, imagine a yellow beach ball the size of a washing machine located a block and a half away from your house, a blue marble being the earth on one side of your keyboard and a peanut being the moon on the other side

Kuyawa 1y ago
Now, using the basketball 24cm (earth) and tennis ball 6.5cm (moon) comparison, they would be separated by 7m in your living room and the sun would be 13m tall (a cherry tree) located at 3km from your house

socalgal2 1y ago

Not the same but related? Powers of 10 by Eames https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 Interestingly, that Hawking visualization makes all the same affordances mentioned in the 1 pixel visualization. They show the earth and moon to scale, then the video shows an aerial view with all the planets much too large. Jupiter is 2x the size of the sun. Saturn and its rings 2x that.