
How Big is Space? - jonathansizz
http://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/20140304-how-big-is-space-interactive/index.html
======
neilellis
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to
the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

Wanted to be the first :-)

~~~
amelius
What do you mean? Clearly our own personal reality is happening within 1
scrollbar-handle-height, and the whole of space is about 20 scrollbar-handle-
heights, so space can't be _that_ big...

~~~
imaginenore
On a log scale. 20 orders of magnitude is f __*ing huge.

It's way bigger than the difference between having one penny in you account
and having all the money in the world.

~~~
zatkin
What about the difference between having one IPv6 address and having all IPv6
addresses?

~~~
mokus
Depends on definitions, but if you go with 10 as your base for "orders of
magnitude" and 64-bit prefixes as "one IPv6 address" (which is the intended
amount of address space for a single host), it's pretty close to precisely the
same difference of scale. If you mean every possible 128-bit address of IPv6,
then IPv6 wins by another 20 orders of magnitude.

EDIT: of course, space wins either way if you count volume rather than
distance - the "orders of magnitude" compound additively. and I also doubt
that "one scrollbar unit" corresponds exactly to a power of 10, so it's still
a weird comparison.

------
Cookingboy
One thing that bothers me is that charts/apps like this have to use
logarithmic scale due to obvious reasons, but log scale is just not very
effective for most people to comprehend on an intuitive level.

In the last section each pixel is 1,000,000km, and the first section each
pixel represents 1 meter, but experience wise it doesn't make the last section
feel that much bigger, and I still have to keep looking at the numbers on the
bottom to actually perceive the correct scale.

~~~
tectec
The sine wave down the middle of the page helps with visualizing the changing
scale. If you want a linear scale, maybe you will appreciate this page:
[http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...](http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)

~~~
carrotleads
I was looking for this exact link and Josh's site seems down(HN effect :))..

that page lets you appreciate the vast emptiness within which we live..

this link gives some extra details until the page is up
[http://gizmodo.com/this-scale-model-of-the-solar-system-
will...](http://gizmodo.com/this-scale-model-of-the-solar-system-will-make-
you-feel-1717465934)

plus some great links in the comments.

------
guelo
I feel like The Scale of the Universe did a better job at giving a sense of
scale, and it goes all the way from plank length to the edge of the observable
universe!

[http://htwins.net/scale2/](http://htwins.net/scale2/)

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I see this get posted a lot, and feel the need to share a similar thing Nikon
did as well since the htwins one feels so woefully inadequate. Somewhat clunky
interface, but far better for grasping the scale of things in relation to each
other:

[http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/](http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/)

------
tobias2014
An alltime classic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0)
(Powers of Ten (1977))

~~~
adonovan
It shows its age. The straight white man is literally at the center of the
universe.

~~~
socceroos
You're right, it should have been Cthullu.

------
zyxley
Space is like that one time you're in another country and you look out over
the ocean, and there's a little boat there and then you realize it's actually
a very large sailboat and for a moment you're struck by vertigo, wondering who
the skipper is, wondering if they are out on vacation too or if this is their
_life_ , out here on the open ocean, with water like blue glass, and you have
to take quick breaths and stare down at the beach rocks until it's passed,
because for just a moment you feel like a tiny little part of the web of
people moving upon the globe, and it makes your chest seize up because you
know there is more out there than you will ever be able to see or know, there
is so much that you will never be able to experience and understand, a
thousand million things that you just can't fit into your life before you run
out of life to live —

— but so much bigger than that.

------
Splendor
I prefer the interactive solar system on Josh Worth's site.

[http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h...](http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)

~~~
slowmovintarget
Seconded, but it appears to be down now. The great thing about that one is it
treats the Moon as one pixel and doesn't change scale.

~~~
Splendor
And it has a cool light speed mode in the bottom right which really drives
home the fact that even traveling at light speed isn't enough to get humans
very far.

------
coffeebro
I'm surprised we didn't see any ads floating through space as we aimlessly
scrolled down.

------
Zigurd
It's only the solar system, but it's still a long walk to Pluto:
[http://www.jeffreybennett.com/model-solar-
systems/colorado-s...](http://www.jeffreybennett.com/model-solar-
systems/colorado-scale-model-solar-system/)

Models like that get across the incredible amounts of space in space.

~~~
eCa
Cool. The largest solar system model is in Sweden[1], with Pluto being 300 km
away from the Sun[2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_Globe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_Globe)

------
jerf
Not sure why this goes with "Warp 1" when "Warp 1" is the speed of light,
something that even a casual Trek fan may very well be unaware of, to say
nothing of the general public.

------
Sideloader
I love this and show it to everyone I know. They've updated the graphics since
I last saw it so I get to show everyone all over again.

Almost everybody is surprised when they learn how close to earth the ISS'
orbit actually is. They look at me funny, well, some do, the barbarians, when
I point out that it is in LOW-Earth Orbit after all and the pictures and video
of Earth shot from the ISS vs. photos of Earth from the moon show that the
station orbits very close to Earth indeed. Some people have no sense of awe
and wonder... :/

------
logfromblammo
Let us go on a journey of imagination across the vast distances of space...

...completely ruin it with scrolling...

...and stop at 20 light-minutes from Earth.

~~~
jordanlev
I liked the scrolling... it feels like they didn't scrolljack the browser
either, it's very smooth.

------
jayflux
[https://www.khanacademy.org/science/cosmology-and-
astronomy/...](https://www.khanacademy.org/science/cosmology-and-
astronomy/universe-scale-topic/scale-small-large-tutorial/v/scale-of-the-
large) have also done a good video on the scale of small and large, and
putting the size of space into perspective, its pretty good.

------
rashkov
Was anyone else surprised to learn that the US tested a nuclear explosion
(Argus III) at a distance comparable to somewhere between the International
Space Station and the Hubble Telescope?

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I was! Seems a bit irresponsible.

~~~
coldpie
Son, lemme tell you about what we did in the 40s and 50s. You are in for some
wild surprises. We took two halves of a supercritical core and held them
separate with a screwdriver while wearing bluejeans and cowboy hats. Why?
Because we _could_ , dammit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core)

------
Bluestrike2
Big is an understatement. If people had any real conceptualization of the
degree of mineral wealth is out there in the inner solar system alone (to say
nothing of the Jovian system), space programs would see a lot more public
support.

On a related note, I hate stumbling across sci-fi novels on Amazon that
conflate solar systems with galaxies. Same mindset at work there.

~~~
billpg
The Doctor Who writers would often use "constellation" when they probably
meant "galaxy". Annoys me more than it really should.

------
suprgeek
They could have tossed in a few of the large moons of Jupiter & Saturn and
included the Oort cloud at the very end for completeness.

Great visualization nevertheless...Especially loved the various markers for
spacecraft. Mind boggling what we have achieved in the short space of about 60
years.

------
telegato
Reminds me on this on:
[http://www.distancetomars.com/](http://www.distancetomars.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5489039](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5489039)

------
lgas
If they're going to make a full page take-over-the-scroll type of experience,
why wouldn't they do this from the bottom going up? I was distracted by the
"upside-downness" of it the whole time.

~~~
markbnj
Because you scroll from top to bottom, duh ;).

~~~
lgas
They could start the scrollbar at the bottom.

------
dghf
No Oort cloud? :(

~~~
eCa
No, not even the scattered disc got in. On the other hand - since the Oort
cloud is up to 100,000 AUs[1] away from the sun - it would have added a bit of
scrolling at the end of the page.

[1] 100,000 AUs: ~150,000,000,000,000 kilometres (big space is big)

------
redcalx
"If there's one thing I like more than space... it's more space" \- Frank
Sidebottom

------
em3rgent0rdr
It would be nice if the values for the voyager and Pluto probes counted in
realtime their distance instead of displaying a static number.

------
BillinSDCA
This was pretty cool! My kudos to those who put this together. BM for sharing.

------
curiousjorge
Kinda depressing just how small we are and that we can't get around places to
explore space without some groundbreaking invention that will transfer
information from the atoms to another location instantly (something like
spooky action except that after you are finished copying the atom data, the
old copy must be deleted to prevent endless dopplegangers appearing) by
appending some complex 3d position information (move all of my atom by
appending some coordinates that could never be reached with even light
travel). Something like
[http://hansonlab.tudelft.nl/teleportation/](http://hansonlab.tudelft.nl/teleportation/)

~~~
sktrdie
I just can't help but think that we'll reach a wall when it comes to exploring
the real world. Even if we get to travel at the speed of light, we're still
limited by it. In 20 years of light travel we'd only visit relatively close
clusters. All the other stuff is thousands of light years away. Not to mention
exploring other galaxies which are millions of light years away.

Quality of life in the virtual world will perhaps be better than that of the
real world. In fact, this is my explanation for the fermi paradox. Most aliens
out there have essentially "given up" the idea of exploring because everything
is just too far away and they simply can't bend the rules of physics. So
they're all living in the matrix.

~~~
marcosscriven
With time-dilation, from the point of view of those on board, it's actually
possible to travel as far as Andromeda with constant 1g acceleration
(decelerating at 1g half way), within a few decades. Of course, time back on
earth would have gone by a few million years...

~~~
sktrdie
Huh, but if light takes 2.5 million years to get to Andromeda, how does it
take us a few decades? You're saying that from the point of view of the
photon, it takes much less time?

~~~
Guillaume86
Yes photons do not experience time, it's all the same instant for them

~~~
sktrdie
So a photon can get anywhere it wants instantly to them?

~~~
mahranch
This is a great article (for laypeople, it's not supposed to be too technical)
that explains it and makes it easy to understand:
[http://zidbits.com/2011/04/why-cant-anything-go-faster-
than-...](http://zidbits.com/2011/04/why-cant-anything-go-faster-than-the-
speed-of-light/)

I'll quote the relevant bit, " _Imagine for a moment that you are a happy
little photon created by a star in another galaxy some 4 billion light years
away. From my perspective here on Earth, it took you exactly 4 billion years
to travel from that star till you reached my retina. From your perspective,
one instant you were created and then the next, you are are bouncing off or
being absorbed by my eyeball. You experienced no passage of time. Your birth
and death happened instantaneously.

This is because time slows for you as your get closer to light speed, and at
it, it completely stops. This is also another reason why nothing can go faster
than light. It would be like slowing down a car to a stop, and then trying to
go slower than completely stopped._"

~~~
perfTerm
It's super interesting that the speed of light is _exactly_ 282,xyz (can't
remember) miles per second. What're the chances? I'm just unable to comprehend
the idea that a fundamental universal constant could be an exact whole number
amount of an arbitrary measurement unit like that. You'd think there'd be a
few decimal points or something.

~~~
whopa
You're misremembering. The speed of light in miles per second is ~186,282.396.
The speed of light in meters per second is 299,792,458, but the meter is
_defined_ using the speed of light:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light)

