6th April 2011 The Scale of Things

Size

Earth  --- Basketball
Height of Mt Everest --- a few human hairs
Distance you can drive in a day --- a penny
Our atmosphere --- a few mm
Space shuttle, low earth orbit --- a pea above the earth
Geostationary satellites  --- 75cm
Moon --- tennis ball
Earth to moon --- across a 2 lane road (7m)
Earth to Sun  --- walk for about 30 minutes,
Sun --- size of a basketball court
Proxima Centauri, nearest star --- 2 car garage
Proxima Centauri to Earth --- two the distance to the moon!
Asteroid which wiped out dinosaurs, plant life etc --- grain of salt

Times

Circle the basketball in 90 minutes in low earth orbit (pea height)
Apollo, earth to moon --- 3 days
Light, earth to moon --- 1 second
Car speed --- 6 months

Source: 365 Days of Astronomy

5th April 2011 Wonders of the Universe Video

A Cosmological Fantasia from BDH - Burrell Durrant Hifle on Vimeo.

3rd April 2011 Relative Sizes

The radii of different parts of the universe.

Man 1 x 10⁰m
Earth 6 x 10⁶m
Sun 7 x 10⁸m
Milky Way 5 x 10²⁰m
Universe 1 x 10²⁶m

Source: 365 Days of Astronomy podcast: Big Numbers

Note that the speed of light is approximately 3 x 10⁸ m/s, so it would take light about 5 seconds to travel from one side of the sun to the other.