Kind of dazzling to see it presented this way. This is certainly enlightening and makes one realize how small we are in comparison to the universe. It's a big, big universe. Hope you can read the small print.
All images are relative in size and to scale of actual size.
Not bad. Earth is looking pretty majestic aren't we.But wait. This is a large solar system we are in. Look on.
Now we don't look so big anymore compared to our big brothers in our solar system.
Our sun will put them to shame!!
Jupiter is fairly puny and our earth? Hardly a dot on the picture. Are you feeling small yet?
There is more!!
Whoa!! I had no idea how small our sun really is and our magnificent planet is not even visible at this scale. How does Heavenly Father find us?
You should be feeling pretty small by now. Let me help you feel even smaller.
The size of our universe is frankly, unfathomable to our minds. I find this some of the best evidence yet that we are not alone in the huge universe we are part of. It staggers your mind.
And if you want to be even more amazed Antares is the 15th brightest star in the known universe. It is over 1,000 light years from the earth. (a light year is the distance light travels in a year....do the math)
Reminds me of the movie Contact at the opening scene when they pull back starting with Jodie Foster's eyes and keep going out and out and out. That truly was one of the better scenes you'll see in a movie, I think.
If you aren't feeling smaller than you were, you should be.
Dad
5 comments:
That's a cool comparison, Mickey -- I'll also admit that I really liked the movie "Contact", despite it being a tad sappy (Matt gives me no end of grief about that btw).
Your post made me think of The Galaxy Song, from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life":
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard or tough...
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, and you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough...
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and reolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, 'round the sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour, of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars; it's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, but out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, we go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, in all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go (and that's 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 out in space,
'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
Just a little levity in the face of the infinite -- hope it gave you a smile. :-)
Mick,
You've confirmed something that I've long suspected: I ain't nothin' special. And yet I am.
I've had a similar feeling when I'm in the mountains: at once completely insignicant, but paradoxically closer to the Divine.
The amazing truth, I believe, is that God loves us in spite of our insignificance. Thus, humility is one of the most important virtues when can develop . . .
You know, going back to that first picture, I think I can see myself waving back. Very small, teeny-tiny.
Stop spreading your godless "Contact" propaganda on a family blog site. I mean really? Carl Sagan was an atheist and anyone who likes that movie is being drawn into his web of deceit. Contact stinks.
Jeff
Not all atheists are evil, Jeff. Just most of us. ;-)
(sorry, couldn't resist)
When we went to the American Museum of natural history in NY last year they have a really cool exhibit that fills up an entire 5 story hall that starts from the smallest micro scale of anything that we know, something like 10x10^-23 meters and gradually go up and give you visual references of how things compare. Mind boggling....
Jeff, you know the Mick has defended his ignorant interpretation of "Contact" for so long now that he is embarassed to admit that he missed the boat....
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