Vastness of our solar system (Earth, stars, light, Sun)

[k374]

cool site let's you scroll (with the right arrow or scroll bar) to see just how vast our solar system actually is

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the solar system

[rigby06]

I saw this link on City-Data before:


But yes pretty cool.

[Milky Way Resident]

Yeah, it's a pretty old thing, but cool nonetheless.

[ciceropolo]

Thank you for reminding me of this Monty Python classic!

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


Sing along...


Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour
that's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so its reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power
the sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
in an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour
of the galaxy we call the Milky Way


Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
its a hundred thousand light years side to side,
it bulges in the middle 16 thousand light years thick,
but out by us its just 3000 light years wide
we're 30,000 light years from galactic central point we go round every 200 million years
and our galaxy is only one many millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe


The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding in all of the directions it can whiz
as fast as it can go - the speed of light you know,
twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
so remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
how amazingly unlikely is your birth
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'cause there's bugger all down here on earth!