28 replies to this topic

[Warbz]

I know most planets vary greatly in size but this was a bit of an eye opener.







pretty shocking, how vast the difference actually is.

[Soul]

Holy shit .

[Jazzie Spurs]

Holy shit, yeah, I cannot agree more.

[Whitey]

Bah. So what? There's no point in comparing us to anything size-wise. There are things many times smaller than us too, don't forget that.

Edited by Boidy, 29 December 2007 - 20:28.

[TheDR]

we are small.

[Sgt. Nuker]

Boidy, on 29 Dec 2007, 15:18, said:

Bah. So what? There's no point in comparing us to anything size-wise. There are things many times smaller than us too, don't forget that.

That's not his point. But meh, what do you care.

For those of us that do actually have a mind to care, that's a rather humbling sight to see.


Regards,

Nuker

[Rich19]

That isn't even the biggest. Watch this - http://newsizeofourworld.ytmnd.com/

[Chyros]

I saw this before but the sight remains humbling. A similar scale-awesomeness is downwards, to nucleon/quark scale. But that's a whole different story.

To anyone interested in things like this topic, I recommend reading A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. It is a book written in casual style, understandable to everyone, with tons of interesting facts about all aspects of science, including astronomy, physics, geology, biology and chemistry.

[Rich19]

Chyros, on 29 Dec 2007, 22:31, said:

To anyone interested in things like this topic, I recommend reading A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. It is a book written in casual style, understandable to everyone, with tons of interesting facts about all aspects of science, including astronomy, physics, geology, biology and chemistry.

Indeed. I could not recommend that book more for someone interested in the subject.

[Dauth]

Size of electron - point like (it treated as having no dimensions)
Size of large red supergiant Antares 10^11m.

But the most amazing thing of all, the human race, us have found ways fo explaining them, predicting how they move, and even producing versions of them in a lab.

[Alias]

Trivia:
Pluto is now longer not considered a full size planet, but rather a dwarf planet.

[Cryptkeeper]

yah I know scales like this are crazy the universe is much bigger too then all of these in fact in my theory its infinite but thats another thing all togather

[Foxhound]

I read that if Sol (the sun) was replaced by VY Canis Majoris, the star would reach out past the orbit of Saturn. Very humbling indeed.

[Rayburn]

For some reason, this makes me think of The Galaxy Song from Monty Phyton's The Meaning of Life
"Makes you feel so insignificant, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah......Can we have your liver then?"


I've always been aware of that but this makes it clear: For the universe, we ARE small and "small" is still too big as a word.
The universe is so incredibly huge that there must be other life out there...Where'd be the point in wasting so much space if there's only us?

Edited by Rayburn, 31 December 2007 - 08:51.

[Dauth]

UNiverse is at least, call it 27.4 Billion light years across (spherically), The solar system containing planets + dwarf planets (Pluto, Ceres & Sedna) + Oort Cloud + Kupier Belt, about 1 - 3 light years.

Humans have shifted about 250,000 miles in space, thats tiny!

[Areze]

When there are fireballs the size of galaxies destroying almost anything they touch, you start to feel small and insignificant.

[Dauth]

Where are these?

Seriously show me one, the Milky Way isn't a big galaxy and its 100,000ly across (IIIRC), bear in mind if you filled the solar system with water that would form a black hole so a star that huge would be something to behold.

[Warbz]

Alias, on 31 Dec 2007, 2:50, said:

Trivia:
Pluto is now longer not considered a full size planet, but rather a dwarf planet.

IMO pluto is just a pebble in comparison to the other planets. lol

[Areze]

Dauth, on 31 Dec 2007, 5:47, said:

Where are these?

Seriously show me one, the Milky Way isn't a big galaxy and its 100,000ly across (IIIRC), bear in mind if you filled the solar system with water that would form a black hole so a star that huge would be something to behold.

Do you mean the fireball thing? I read the article loong ago. I might be able to find it though. May have been on this forum.

[Dauth]

Yea I mean the fireball thingy, it doesn't half interest me the sources for these sorta thing.

[Areze]

http://www.theregist..._balls_of_fire/

[Dauth]

Its a star formation cluster, moving at a huge rate, cool thing to have spotted.

[NergiZed]

That's pretty cool stuff.

Here's an animated gif of this kind of stuff.



It's got Canis Majoris in it, which I believe is truely the biggest star ever discovered so far.

[Medve]

Well that's obvious. And now we say that the farthest discovered quasar is 18,8 billion ly away. That's even bigger. And Dauth: me and my physics mad friend are going to make a wonderful new way to find out the place where a quasar f.e. has gone in the time its light reached us. I hope you understand this . 2 problems are present:

1.: It's very hard to make because of the fact that the Hubble constant always changes the speed of the growing of the universe. The constant changes too slowly. Trust me, we're good at maths, but this will require immense skill. Maybe this exists, but then we find it out ourselves. And either way, we come to the second problem:

2.: Our distance measuring using the lights spectrums doesn't worth a watch. It says that all the galaxies emmit the same amount of light, which is impossible because then there would be impossibly big objects. This is going to go to MSN I feel.

Medve

[Dauth]

Ok very confused here,

Quasar f.e. ?

I'm good at maths, I have a reasonable grasp of Tensor notaion, and moderate skills at Matricies, however the jump between me and the people who understand this stuff properly is probably as big as the jump between me and someone who can just perform 2 + 2.

Quote

It says that all the galaxies emmit the same amount of light, which is impossible because then there would be impossibly big objects.

No, It merely assumes that objects emit light in the same manner (ie a star at 5000K here is the same as one at 5000k there)

Type 1A supernovae are special and worth a section in my corner of science.

Essentially over 1.4 Solar masses a neutron start forms from a supernova, below that you get a white dwarf. Should a binary system be a white dwarf and a normal star and the white dwarf is accreting matter from the normal star, eventaully it will supernova. These supernovae all have similar properties and this is how we measure distances. (Using the Hubble law, but a very advanced version)