To Scale: The Solar System
An evening pause: What this attempt achieves more than anything else is to demonstrate that the scale of the universe is almost impossible to simulate or to conceive. There is a lot of emptiness out there.
Hat tip Rocco.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
And we are…what…the size of quarks? We should be reminded of this from time to time. Thanks, Rocco!
Beautiful!
Another great way to appreciate the size of our solar system is The Thousand Yard Model invented by Guy Ottewell http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html
I’ve done this multiple times for small groups and it never ceases to amaze. The sun is a soccer ball, and the earth is a peppercorn. At the end of the walk, when we are way out at Pluto, I produce a second soccer ball and say “Here’s the nearest star to our sun. In our model, how far away should it be?” Take a guess… figure it out… be astonished.
Great video. I was waiting at the end for the inevitable lecture on saving our world from Global Warming, but I was pleasantly surprised! :-)