61–70 of 95 posts
It's only the solar system, but it's still a long walk to Pluto: http://www.jeffreybennett.com/model-solar-systems/colorado-s... Models like that get across the incredible amounts of space in space.
It's only the solar system, but it's still a long walk to Pluto: http://www.jeffreybennett.com/model-solar-systems/colorado-s... Models like that get across the incredible amounts of space in space.
One thing that bothers me is that charts/apps like this have to use logarithmic scale due to obvious reasons, but log scale is just not very effective for most people to comprehend on an intuitive level. In the last section each pixel is 1,000,000km, and the first section each pixel represents 1 meter, but experience wise it doesn't make the last section feel that much bigger, and I still have to keep looking at the…
The sine wave down the middle of the page helps with visualizing the changing scale. If you want a linear scale, maybe you will appreciate this page: http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...
that page lets you appreciate the vast emptiness within which we live..
this link gives some extra details until the page is up http://gizmodo.com/this-scale-model-of-the-solar-system-will...
plus some great links in the comments.
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So a photon can get anywhere it wants instantly to them?
This is a great article (for laypeople, it's not supposed to be too technical) that explains it and makes it easy to understand: http://zidbits.com/2011/04/why-cant-anything-go-faster-than-... I'll quote the relevant bit, " Imagine for a moment that you are a happy little photon created by a star in another galaxy some 4 billion light years away. From my perspective here on Earth, it took you exactly 4 billion years…
Almost everybody is surprised when they learn how close to earth the ISS' orbit actually is. They look at me funny, well, some do, the barbarians, when I point out that it is in LOW-Earth Orbit after all and the pictures and video of Earth shot from the ISS vs. photos of Earth from the moon show that the station orbits very close to Earth indeed. Some people have no sense of awe and wonder... :/
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This is a great article (for laypeople, it's not supposed to be too technical) that explains it and makes it easy to understand: http://zidbits.com/2011/04/why-cant-anything-go-faster-than-... I'll quote the relevant bit, " Imagine for a moment that you are a happy little photon created by a star in another galaxy some 4 billion light years away. From my perspective here on Earth, it took you exactly 4 billion years…
It's super interesting that the speed of light is exactly 282,xyz (can't remember) miles per second. What're the chances? I'm just unable to comprehend the idea that a fundamental universal constant could be an exact whole number amount of an arbitrary measurement unit like that. You'd think there'd be a few decimal points or something.
I prefer the interactive solar system on Josh Worth's site. http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...
Seconded, but it appears to be down now. The great thing about that one is it treats the Moon as one pixel and doesn't change scale.
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It's worth to do a linear scale miniature of the solar system. At the 1:10^9 scale, it fits well within a farm or a big park, all the planets are at a viable size, and the Sun is not too big.
That could make for a cool park. I imagine you'd have clear line of sight between the planets (either by having a clear path between or by raising them up on monuments), and telescopes setup at each planet in such a way that visitors could look at the other planets without people getting in the way. The Sun would be 1.5 meters across, the Earth would be 1.2 centimeters across, and the whole thing would be 4.5 km from…