A congenial 'fuck you' to the authors for crashing my entire OS. Cool idea though.
If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
21–30 of 216 posts
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#22I'd really like to see a few more markers:
1) 3100 px: Farthest humans have been from Earth (Apollo 13, April '70: 400,171 km)
2) 10 px: Gemini 11, farthest from Earth on non-lunar mission (Sept '66: 1,374.1 km)
3) 3 px: Apogee of ISS (farthest a human has traveled for... a while: 424 km) (I'm probably forgetting something, can't find a good list of spaceflights by distance...)
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Far...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
Taking Earth's diameter as 12,742 km (though it bulges by about 43 km in the center), we're saying that's 100 px. So if my basic algebra is right (no promises) you can convert the above km values to px by dividing by 127.42.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#23Not sure if it's a bug or a typo, but the "width" (diameter) of the Earth is 12,742 km, not 6,371 (which is the radius).
Shouldn't it be something more like 20,000 km, since the equator is about 40,000 km long and we're looking at half of it? Anyway 6,371 can't be right though.
No, that's circumference - 3.14 * 12742 is approx. 40K.
You are looking at the Earth side-on, so you only see the 2D projection of the half-equator. (EDIT: I think it should be "1D projection")
Another nitpick - presumably our view axis is perpendicular to the solar system plane. The Earth would not look like in the picture, we would see one of the poles but slightly off-centered.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#24Brilliant. I never actually reached mars - just the gut wrenching distance to the moon made me realise how amazing the Apollo program was - whatever gets us to Mars ...
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#25What's frustrating is how much better of a candidate Venus would be, if it weren't for its atmosphere. It's closer than Mars and larger too.
Theoretically, we could build floating cities on Venus:
Landis has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 Oxygen-Nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth. In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 km above Venusian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the solar system – a pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C–50°C range.
Because there is not a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the breathable-air balloon, any rips or tears would cause gases to diffuse at normal atmospheric mixing rates rather than an explosive decompression, giving time to repair any such damages. In addition, humans would not require pressurized suits when outside, merely air to breathe, protection from the acidic rain and on some occasions low level protection against heat. Alternatively, two-part domes could contain a lifting gas like hydrogen or helium (extractable from the atmosphere) to allow a higher mass density.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_city_(science_fiction)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus#Aerostat_...
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#26I'd love to see the Sun included on the opposite side of the scale. Its diameter is 109 times that of earth, making it 10900 pixels. Would be just as impressive a demonstration.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#27What's frustrating is how much better of a candidate Venus would be, if it weren't for its atmosphere. It's closer than Mars and larger too.
Kind of a silly thing to say though. If Mars had a "better" atmosphere too it'd be that much more superior as a colonization target.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#28I'd really like to see a few more markers: 1) 3100 px: Farthest humans have been from Earth (Apollo 13, April '70: 400,171 km) 2) 10 px: Gemini 11, farthest from Earth on non-lunar mission (Sept '66: 1,374.1 km) 3) 3 px: Apogee of ISS (farthest a human has traveled for... a while: 424 km) (I'm probably forgetting something, can't find a good list of spaceflights by distance...) Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L…
I think the value of this is in its focus and simplicity. There have been other websites using zooms and/or scrolling to visualize scale differences (e.g. http://scaleofuniverse.com/), but this is an elegant statement about just one fact, and I think that's more likely to get the ball rolling in someone's brain and amaze them than inundating them with trivia all at once (but thanks for the trivia just the same :).
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like to imagine if Mars and Venus were swapped would Venus then be habitable?
No. Simply put: the core is likely solidified just like Mars and its magnetic field is very weak, causing the weather to be influenced by only its rotation and solar winds. It would be far more difficult to terraform than Mars really. Also a Venusian day is something like 5,800 hours and its surface temperature is capable of melting lead.
Where'd you get the idea that Venus has a solid core?