On the way to Mars, there was a flash and the screen went white. I guess I didn't make it.
If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
11–20 of 216 posts
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#12What'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.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#13What'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.
I like to imagine if Mars and Venus were swapped would Venus then be habitable?
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#14Nicely done. A biology scaled version would be cool. Like if a virus was 100 pixels wide...
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#15related: interactive scale of the universe http://htwins.net/scale2/
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#16Nicely done. A biology scaled version would be cool. Like if a virus was 100 pixels wide...
Or.. an electron is 100 pixels wide..
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#17Not 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.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#18if I leave it running will I get to mars? just out of curiosity? ( i do have better things to do ).
Or you can turn off Javascript and hit the "End" key. Alas, there does not seem to be any real-life equivalent to that.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#19Oh this is fantastic! My father teaches astronomy to kids (he has a mobile planetarium that he takes around schools [1]) and one of the main pain points he has mentioned is communicating a sense of scale to them.
This is elegant because it mixes the concept of "imagine this orange is the earth, mars would be in " within the constraints of a web page.
Kids have difficulty visualising distances in an abstract way - but time is much simpler. And the length of the scroll to Mars really emphasises this.
Great visualisation.
Re: If the Earth were 100 pixels wide
#20What'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.
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.