11 September 2013

A reminder of our place in the cosmos



The video, from the Hayden Planetarium, zooms out from Nepal to about 14 billion light-years away to show the extent of the known Universe, then zooms back in.  The zoom is FTL, so it only takes 6 minutes.   If you're going to watch, full-screen would be appropriate.

By someone's calculation, if our galaxy, the Milky Way, were brought down in size to the size of the continental United States, our Sun would be the size of a single red blood cell.  And Earth perhaps the size of a malarial parasite.

Via Fact Stream.

6 comments:

  1. Another reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J5rBxeTIk

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  2. One of the few cases where the non-original version is better:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwi5L8jcXpg

    The combination of visual and aural stimulation is... stunning...

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  3. The video would benefit from a camera speed indicator - the camera travels faster the farther it is from Earth, but it is difficult to get a proper sense of acceleration and, consequently, distance covered over time.

    Also, there is an interactive program that allows you to travel around the known universe like that (less graphically impressive though): http://www.shatters.net/celestia/index.html

    Also also, in the comparison where the diameter of the Sun is scaled down to the diameter of a human erythrocyte, a malarial parasite at its smallest (merozoite stage) would still be much larger than Jupiter (merozoite is 1/6-1/8 the diameter of erythrocyte, Jupiter is nearly 1/10 the diameter of Sun). Earth would be the size of a smallish virus - smaller than flu or HIV, about the size of an equine encephalitis virus.

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  4. Wow! Truly stunning! It is especially stunning when you consider that all of that was simply spoken into existence in six days by Almighty God! " The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." (Psalm 19:1) "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." (Romans 1:19,20)

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    Replies
    1. Are you implying the creation days are six 24 hour periods? Who told you that? That's ridiculous and not supported in the very story you are referencing. The word "day" has many different meanings in the Bible and is not always tied to a literal 24 hour day.

      Gen 2:4 says "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens"

      In the "day" that God did all this... a meta-day that includes the other days. Which one refers to 24 hours??

      Gen 1:5 "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

      A portion of the first creative "day" was called "day".

      Or like Luke 17:26 "And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man"

      Yikes, do we have to know how many sunrises Noah was present for during his lifetime to figure out this prophecy?

      I could go on....


      P.S. Sorry my disparage filter is broken this evening.

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