So
you forgot your umbrella at home and got absolutely soaked on your way to the
bus stop – it seems like your day can’t get any worse, right? And while we
can’t offer you a dry shirt and a pair of pants, we can offer you something
that will help you take your mind off of your misery.
Today
we’ve prepared for you a collection of images that show just how small our
Earth is compared to the rest of the universe. And we’re pretty sure they will
make your problems seem so minuscule, you’ll realize they’re not even worth
breaking a sweat over.
This
is Earth, our home planet
Image
credits: NASA
Here
it is next to the other 7 planets of our solar system
Image
credits: NASA
Our
4.568 billion-year-old solar system consists of 8 planets (Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), 3 dwarf planets (Ceres,
Pluto, Eris), and, of course, the Sun. That is if you’re not counting all of
the moons and asteroids inside it.
Here’s
how far Earth is from the moon – doesn’t seem like that far, right?
Image
credits: Nickshanks
Turns
out you can actually fit every planet in the solar system in
that distance!
Image
credits: reddit
Jupiter
is the largest planet in our solar system – here’s how tiny North America
looks compared to it
Image
credits: John
Brady/Astronomy Central
When
we say Jupiter is big, we mean it’s huge. Here are some numbers to help
you understand just how big it is: Earth’s radius is 6371.0 km (3958.8 mi)
while Jupiter’s radius is 69,911 km (43,441 mi). Its surface
area is 6.1419×1010 km2 (2.3714×1010 sq mi) – that means
it’s almost 122 times bigger than Earth!
And
then there’s Saturn – here’s how big it is compared to Earth
Image
credits: John
Brady/Astronomy Central
Here’s
how Saturn’s rings would look like if they were placed around Earth
Image
credits: Ron Miller
Just
in case you thought we forgot about Pluto, here’s how we can see it now vs. how
we were able to see it 14 years ago
Image
credits: NASA
Remember
when we used to call Pluto a planet back in school? Well, it all changed back
in 2006 when it was reclassified as a dwarf instead of a planet.
An
artist tried to imagine how Rosetta’s Comet (67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko)
would look compared to downtown LA. That’s a big space rock, isn’t it?
Image
credits: anosmicovni
If
you thought Jupiter was big, it has nothing on the Sun
Image
credits: ajamesmccarthy
The Sun has a surface area
of 6.09×1012 km2 – that’s as big as 12,000 Earths! Here are some
other fun facts:
– The
light from the Sun takes 8 min and 19 s to reach Earth
– The
Sun is made up of 73.46% Hydrogen, 24.85% Helium and small traces of
Oxygen, Carbon and other elements
– The
Sun turns 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second, resulting in 4
million tons of matter being converted into energy every second
Here’s how
Earth looks from the surface of the Moon
Image
credits: NASA/Bill Anders
And
here’s how it looks from Mars
Image
credits: NASA
…and from
behind Saturn’s rings – looks kind of small, doesn’t it?
Image
credits: NASA
Earth
looks no bigger than a grain of salt from 2.9 billion miles away, just beyond
Neptune
Image
credits: NASA
Here’s
how Earth looks compared to the Sun
Image
credits: John
Brady/Astronomy Central
Although
it looks like a little speck when seen from the surface of Mars
Image
credits: NASA
Here’s
another fun fact – there are more stars in the universe than there are grains
of sand on every beach on Earth
Image
credits: Sean O’Flaherty
This
means that there are much bigger stars than our sun out there. For example,
here’s the Sun compared to VY Canis Majoris
Image
credits: Oona Räisänen
If
placed in the center of our solar system, VY Canis Majoris would almost reach
the orbit of Saturn
Image
credits: Discovery Channel
If
we scaled the Sun down to the size of a white blood cell, the Milky Way would
be the just as big as the continental United States
Image
credits: NASA
Suddenly
the Earth doesn’t seem that big anymore
Looking
up at the night sky, you can see thousands of stars and they’re just a fraction
of the numerous stars in the universe
Image
credits: ScienceDump
Just
in case you thought Milky Way is huge, here how it looks next to IC
1101, located 1.04 billion light-years away
Image
credits: IC 1101
Here’s
a photo of the thousands of galaxies around us take by the Hubble Space
Telescope
Image
credits: NASA
Most
of them are so far away, we might never get to visit them – like UDF 423,
for example, that’s located 7.7 billion light-years away
Image
credits: NASA
All
of the stars in the night sky are just a tiny part of the whole universe
Image
credits: NASA
And
one last thing – black holes. Here’s how one looks compared to Earth’s
orbit – now that’s pretty terrifying
Image
credits: D. Benningfield/K. Gebhardt/StarDate
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