Awesome And Humbling!

[Fat Man]

Here is a favorite topic of mine. Astronomy!

It is my absolute favorite. Astronomy is really cool! Astronomy rules!

AWESOME AND HUMBLING!

Here are the smallest planets in our solar system.



The four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and one of the outer planets, Pluto. The earth is about 7,920 miles in diameter, so this gives you an idea how big the other planets are compared to Earth. By the way, Pluto is no longer considered a planet anymore, but a dwarf planet instead, somewhere between being an asteroid and a planet.

Other Pluto-sized objects have recently been discovered beyond the orbit of Neptune, some smaller than Pluto, and some slightly larger than Pluto. There seems to be a belt of these Pluto-sized objects, a region of the outer solar system that is now called the Kuiper Belt, so Pluto is not called a planet anymore. It is now officially designated as a Kuiper Belt Object, a KBO, or a dwarf planet.

The next picture is of the outer planets.



These are the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter is about 86,000 miles in diameter. Jupiter is so big that you can put about 1,300 Earths inside of Jupiter. This should give you an idea of how big the other planet are in comparison.

The next picture below is of the Sun and all the planets together.



Here is the Sun and all of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and, yeah we know, Pluto. The Sun is about 860,000 miles in diameter, or 10 times the diameter of Jupiter. You can put over a million Earths inside the Sun! It kind of gives you an idea just how small our planet really is, how insignificant we truly are.

The next picture below shows how the Sun compares in size to some of the other stars.



The Sun is a typical average sized star. Some stars are smaller then the Sun, they are called dwarf stars, while some stars are much bigger than the Sun. In this picture, the Earth is too small to be shown, therefore it is invisible on this scale, and Jupiter is just a tiny little dot that is just barely seen. The Sun is nothing compared to these stars.

But Oh! It gets even better! Wait 'til you seen the next picture below!



On this scale, the Sun is so small you can just barely see it, and Jupiter is invisible. These are called giant stars and super-giant stars, some so big you can put millions of Suns inside of them.

Now you can see just how tiny and insignificant we truly are! We are nothing!!!

Ah! Don't ya just love it!!!

[RaleighRob]

Nice post. I like the size comparisons the way you've shown them here...really helps get the mind to understand the scales we're talking about. Wow.

[sports rox1234]

Thats pretty cool that the earth is that small compared to the sun.I never knew that. Maybe I missed it if you put it in there but how big is the moon compared to us?

Edited by Skul: It's really not necessary to quote the post directly above yours. Especially a long one with huge pictures.

[Fat Man]

Thats pretty cool that the earth is that small compared to the sun.I never knew that. Maybe I missed it if you put it in there but how big is the moon compared to us?

The moon is about one-fourth the size of the earth, actually slightly larger than one-fourth the earth's diameter.

Earth is 7,920 miles in diameter and the moon is 2,160 miles in diameter, and it's orbital distance from Earth is 238,855 miles.

That's the average distance.

The moon goes around the earth in an elliptical orbit, so sometimes it's closer, and sometimes it further away. But the average distance away from us is 238,855 miles.

Now that I have sparked your interest, perhaps you would like to start checking out some Astronomy books from the library.

I know you don't have the patients to do a lot of reading, but Astronomy books also have lots and lots of beautiful colored photographs of planets, star clusters, and galaxies.

Perhaps, at your local library, you could check out a series of video tapes, 13 episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

I think you would really enjoy it!

Also, the music is beautiful! It give's me the shivers!

We are discovering more and more every day. We know a Hell of a lot more now, than we did many years ago when I was in school.

But the more we discover, the more we become aware of how much more there is to know.



This says it all.

[Lewis]

One of the things that I find interesting is the shape of the universe. Those picture really show how small we are, it is amazing.

[natmanhan]

While humbling in a way it's in a different way empowering too. It shows just how advanced our human knowledge has come and how much further it may go.

[RaleighRob]

While I'm not in the least surprised at the difference between Earth and the Sun, the part that is surprising is that different stars have such huge size differences between them. Our sun is tiny compared to those others. Something I don't recall hearing about before.

[Ray]

Thats pretty cool that the earth is that small compared to the sun.I never knew that. Maybe I missed it if you put it in there but how big is the moon compared to us?

The moon is about one-fourth the size of the earth, actually slightly larger than one-fourth the earth's diameter.

Earth is 7,920 miles in diameter and the moon is 2,160 miles in diameter, and it's orbital distance from Earth is 238,855 miles.

That's the average distance.

The moon goes around the earth in an elliptical orbit, so sometimes it's closer, and sometimes it further away. But the average distance away from us is 238,855 miles.

Now that I have sparked your interest, perhaps you would like to start checking out some Astronomy books from the library.

I know you don't have the patients to do a lot of reading, but Astronomy books also have lots and lots of beautiful colored photographs of planets, star clusters, and galaxies.

Perhaps, at your local library, you could check out a series of video tapes, 13 episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

I think you would really enjoy it!

Also, the music is beautiful! It give's me the shivers!

We are discovering more and more every day. We know a Hell of a lot more now, than we did many years ago when I was in school.

But the more we discover, the more we become aware of how much more there is to know.



This says it all.

Yes, it is awesome. I just wonder how they took the picture.