I've been trying to understand the size of the Earth in comparison to the universe

[Arkitech]

I'm working on preparing a discourse for an audience and I've been looking for a way to visualize in speaking terms the size of the earth in comparison to the universe. Initially I had thought that the Earth might be the size of a grain of sand in comparison to the universe, but now if I'm understanding correctly would the earth be on a molecular level in comparison to the universe? Or is that even not an approximate representation?

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

This site is incredible. It made me realize just how much more there is to existence. Trying to get even a small sense of the universe is an incredibly humbling experience.

 

[BoomerD]

Imagine all the sand in the Sahara desert. Take one grain of that sand, pound it into the smallest fragments you possibly can...then put it all back into the desert. The smallest of those fragments will still be smaller than the Earth as compared to the known universe.

Or better yet, compare Kim Kardashian's ass to that of a normal female...that should make a similar comparison.

 

[Puppies04]

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Literally lol'd. Please tell me that this gets posted around seriously by "Science Is So Cool!" types.

 

[Puppies04]

Literally lol'd. Please tell me that this gets posted around seriously by "Science Is So Cool!" types.

You know it does, I bet it was all over facebook when it was made.

"Whoa man, that's like so deep!!!"

 

[Jeff7]

Do an image search for universe large scale structure. The foamy renderings you'll see are showing the large-scale arrangement of superclusters of galaxies.



In our own solar system, the Sun, a common yellow dwarf star, is 99.86% of the mass of the system.
Jupiter is about 70% of what's left.



Calling Earth a speck of dust in relation to the Universe would still be a gross overestimation of our size.




.

 

[sdifox]

lulz


op see Total Perspective Vortex from the hitchhiker's guide.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex

 

[waggy]

yeah watching movies that show the size is humbling. It makes me question the sanity of people that say god made all this for us. Or those that say there is NO other life out there.

 

[brianmanahan]

oh gosh this had me laughing for a full minute

 

[Sulaco]

Incomprehensible.

But a good starting point; Earth in relation to our Sun:

Our Sun in relation to VY Canis Majoris, the largest known star:

 

[Puppies04]

Does this help OP?

http://i.imgur.com/e9DJjCo.jpg

 

[Markbnj]

oh gosh this had me laughing for a full minute

Same. That's actually right up there with the "Therefore aliens" meme as one of my all-time favorites.

 

[SlitheryDee]

It's like a grain of sand in a desert if the whole desert was a grain of sand in another desert.

 

[Squeetard]

Try this one:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/3390.html

The blue dot represents a 200 light year diameter bubble, the extent of how far human created radio waves have travelled in the galaxy since marconi invented the radio.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DufMJosYmJs

 

[Captante]

Does this help OP?

http://i.imgur.com/e9DJjCo.jpg

That was awesome!

 

[dank69]

It's like a grain of sand in a desert if the whole desert was a grain of sand in another desert.

 

[moonbogg]

Try this one:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/3390.html

The blue dot represents a 200 light year diameter bubble, the extent of how far human created radio waves have travelled in the galaxy since marconi invented the radio.

I love this bit of info. It is a good bit of into to put the size of our galaxy into perspective. We know light goes around the earth 7.5 times in 1 second. You said 200 light years is the farthest humans have sent radio waves, which is really, really damn far. Our galaxy alone is 120,000 light years across. Imagine waiting for our first radio wave to cross our galaxy, and then waiting for it to travel the vast emptiness between us and the next galaxy, Andromeda, and then crossing through Andromeda and, and...mind = blown

 

[z1ggy]

I don't really think it's possible for a human to truly understand the scale. It's like taking the smallest of small things you could ever see, and comparing it to something so large, that you'll never get the chance to experience it in person.

 

[glenn1]

Sun is about 109 times the size of the Earth. So if the Sun was the size of a regulation soccer ball, the Earth would be a sphere just slightly smaller than the diameter of a U.S. nickel (5 cent) coin. The real sun is about 6.2 billion times larger than a soccer ball.

To scale that up to a Earth vs. Universe comparison, we'll stick with the Sun = soccer ball scale. Given soccer ball Sun, the distance to the equivalently resized Andromeda Galaxy would be over 6 billion miles. That's twice the real life distance from the Sun to Pluto.

Here's a series of videos to help put things into better perspective.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science...arth-galaxy-tutorial/v/scale-of-earth-and-sun

 

[Printer Bandit]

star size

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

 

[Ruptga]

From a quick look at that site, the observable universe is 10^27m wide, and a neutron is 10^-15. So the difference between us and the whole universe is 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) times larger than the difference between us and a neutron. A neutron is probably the smallest point of reference for most people, but you'll probably need to put it into perspective as well. Maybe show them a picture of a microchip between someone's fingers, tell them there are 5 billion (or whatever) transistors on that one chip, and that the difference between us and a single transistor is about the same as the difference between that transistor and a neutron.

Actually, you will then need to put a billion into perspective. Most people can't tell a million from a billion or a billion from a trillion, which is always fun when government policy comes up.

 

[Jeff7]

From a quick look at that site, the observable universe is 10^27m wide, and a neutron is 10^-15. So the difference between us and the whole universe is 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) times larger than the difference between us and a neutron. A neutron is probably the smallest point of reference for most people, but you'll probably need to put it into perspective as well. Maybe show them a picture of a microchip between someone's fingers, tell them there are 5 billion (or whatever) transistors on that one chip, and that the difference between us and a single transistor is about the same as the difference between that transistor and a neutron.

No, a grain of sand is probably the smallest point of reference for most people.

Actually, you will then need to put a billion into perspective. Most people can't tell a million from a billion or a billion from a trillion, which is always fun when government policy comes up.

Exactly.

"Warren Buffet could write a check for $50,000 as easily as you could hand someone $4."

"Bullshit. No one on the planet has that much money."


(Actually, the difference is even more than that.)



Once you exceed the number of fingers and toes someone has, you're going to start losing your audience.

Sun is about 109 times the size of the Earth. So if the Sun was the size of a regulation soccer ball, the Earth would be a sphere just slightly smaller than the diameter of a U.S. nickel (5 cent) coin. The real sun is about 6.2 billion times larger than a soccer ball.

To scale that up to a Earth vs. Universe comparison, we'll stick with the Sun = soccer ball scale. Given soccer ball Sun, the distance to the equivalently resized Andromeda Galaxy would be over 6 billion miles. That's twice the real life distance from the Sun to Pluto.

Here's a series of videos to help put things into better perspective.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science...arth-galaxy-tutorial/v/scale-of-earth-and-sun

Then step it up and show them the distance between those two objects.

By volume, the Universe is almost entirely empty space. Matter is a rounding error, and an extremely tiny one at that.

 

[IronWing]

Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the Earth. Based on this morning's sample, the universe would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

 

[MongGrel]

That had me scratching my head going "WTF" there for a few seconds.