Can't stop watching the video of earth compared to VV Cephei, an enormous star that if placed where our sun is, would be as large as the orbit of Saturn. The popular computer graphic shows earth next to Neptune, Neptune next to Saturn, then Jupiter, the Sun, Sirius, Pollux, Arcturus, etc all the way up to VV Cephei, like a procession of bigger and bigger schoolyard bullies. It's absolutely humbling to think of that of all that size and power. Astronomers say VY Canis Majoris is even larger. By the way, congratulations to Robert Quimby, a grad student working at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas for spotting the largest supernova yet recorded, fortunately in a galaxy 240 million light years away and therefore during the Permian era of our own history. The exploded star was hypothesized to be 100-200 times heavier than our sun.
Very nice visualization of the concept of orders of magnitude. Here's an image from wikipedia. The sun is just a spec by comparison.
But really, that's only 3 orders of magnitude.
The visible universe extends about 50 B light-years in all directions, which means it has a diameter of 1 x 10^24 meters. The typical atom is about 0.3 nanometers (0.3 x 10^-9). So, that's a range of over 33 orders of magnitude without going subatomic.
And how about this: if you took one ounce of water, and spaced the molecules out 1 meter apart, they would span the visible universe.
(Beware of the unleashed science geek.)
Charles and Ray Eames: Powers of Ten video.
where does baby jesus live?
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Can't stop watching the video of earth compared to VV Cephei, an enormous star that if placed where our sun is, would be as large as the orbit of Saturn. The popular computer graphic shows earth next to Neptune, Neptune next to Saturn, then Jupiter, the Sun, Sirius, Pollux, Arcturus, etc all the way up to VV Cephei, like a procession of bigger and bigger schoolyard bullies. It's absolutely humbling to think of that of all that size and power. Astronomers say VY Canis Majoris is even larger. By the way, congratulations to Robert Quimby, a grad student working at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas for spotting the largest supernova yet recorded, fortunately in a galaxy 240 million light years away and therefore during the Permian era of our own history. The exploded star was hypothesized to be 100-200 times heavier than our sun.
- tom moody 5-09-2007 7:31 am
Very nice visualization of the concept of orders of magnitude. Here's an image from wikipedia. The sun is just a spec by comparison.
But really, that's only 3 orders of magnitude.
The visible universe extends about 50 B light-years in all directions, which means it has a diameter of 1 x 10^24 meters. The typical atom is about 0.3 nanometers (0.3 x 10^-9). So, that's a range of over 33 orders of magnitude without going subatomic.
And how about this: if you took one ounce of water, and spaced the molecules out 1 meter apart, they would span the visible universe.
(Beware of the unleashed science geek.)
- mark 5-10-2007 2:22 am
Charles and Ray Eames: Powers of Ten video.
- jim 5-10-2007 3:02 am
where does baby jesus live?
- dave 5-10-2007 3:35 am