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How far away is the sun?

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01-12-2011 9:58pm

#1

El Weirdo

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Stumbled across this here and thought I'd give your scrolling fingers some exercise.

After the reasonable popularity of last week's scale picture that illustrated the distance between the Earth and the Moon, I just had to take things to the next logical level. Today I've reduced the scale, and increased the image size dramatically, to represent one astronomical unit (AU), or the distance between the earth and the Sun.

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#2 01-12-2011 10:00pm
Spacedog

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did i go past it?

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#3 01-12-2011 10:00pm
GLaDOS

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There's multiple pictures, you only posted the first one

Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test

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#4 01-12-2011 10:02pm
El Weirdo

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ScienceNerd wrote: »

There's multiple pictures, you only posted the first one

Balls! I'll fix it.

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#5 01-12-2011 10:05pm
al28283

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The stars are repeating? I think you're going the long way

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#6 01-12-2011 10:07pm
Guill

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Is it night?

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#7 01-12-2011 10:08pm
El Weirdo

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Fixed.

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#8 01-12-2011 10:13pm
Temptamperu

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So if the sun went out we wouldnt know for 8 minutes... awesome.

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#9 01-12-2011 10:25pm
tbaymusicman

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Im going to admit that i was perplexed as too where Mars was haha
Then i remembered mars was the right turn

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#10 01-12-2011 11:01pm
AhSureTisGrand

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tl;dr

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#11 01-12-2011 11:08pm
mmmmmmm.......

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so if the sun suddenly disappeared, we would still see its light for over 8 minutes....and because nothing travels faster than light(not even gravity), then theoretically we would still feel the affects of the suns gravity for 8 minutes even though it wouldnt be there
=MIND BLOWN:eek:

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#12 01-12-2011 11:53pm
johnmcdnl

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mmmmmmm....... wrote: »

so if the sun suddenly disappeared, we would still see its light for over 8 minutes....and because nothing travels faster than light(not even gravity), then theoretically we would still feel the affects of the suns gravity for 8 minutes even though it wouldnt be there
=MIND BLOWN:eek:

what happens after 8 minutes :eek:

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#13 02-12-2011 12:32am
xtradel

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No wonder its so feckin' cold here!!......and my scrolling finger hurts :mad:

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#14 02-12-2011 12:52am
GLaDOS

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johnmcdnl wrote: »

what happens after 8 minutes :eek:

I imagine it would kinda like when you release a sling

Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test

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#15 02-12-2011 1:23am
CrazyRabbit

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johnmcdnl wrote: »

what happens after 8 minutes :eek:

Well no need to worry about the sun disappearing, but it would get very very cold over the following few days. Within a few weeks, it would be below -200c.

What will actually happen though is that the sun will become a red giant. We would see a massive bright flash, so strong that it would blind you. Not that you would have to worry about that as the sun would envelop the earth shortly afterwards. A nice toasty 5500c.
You'll have to stick around for 5 billion years for this though. Of course, earth will only be hospitable for another billion years though as the sun is slowly heating up and will eventually cause liquid water to evaporate, along with a lot of our atmosphere.

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#16 02-12-2011 3:06pm
Jagera

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How long would I need to scroll to Uranus?

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#17 02-12-2011 3:16pm
Junco Partner

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^^^
About 12 shots of whiskey

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#18 02-12-2011 3:20pm
foxyboxer

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When you observe the sun (with sunglasses!). That's what it looked like 8.32 minutes ago.

If the earth was a pin head. And the Sun was a Football, then the Sun would be 25 metres away.

Taking the Sun as a football, the nearest star (another football) to ours would be circa 5,600km away. In India, as the crow flies. :eek:

Try scrolling down that!

Put another way.

Over the years, I've seen a number of attempts to give an impression of the truly staggering scale of the universe by resorting to various scaled down comparisons. The following is in my view the very best one, not only because it gives a scale that is visualisable ... but also because it is based on a rather handy close coincidence between the Earth-Sun distance in inches, and the number of miles in a light year.

So, the Sun on this scale is the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence, and the Earth is an inch away.

Jupiter is 5 inches from the Sun. Saturn 9 inches. Neptune about 2.5 feet. The entire solar system including Pluto is about 6 feet across.

On this scale, the nearest star is 4 miles away. Most of the visible stars in the night sky are within 3000 miles, yet the center of the galaxy is 26,000 miles away....and the entire galaxy is 100,000 miles across. It would stretch half way to the moon.

The nearest large galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million miles away.....10 times further than the moon. The large Virgo cluster of galaxies is 60 million miles away...about the distance of Mars at its closest. And that's just nearby galaxies !

On this scale, the furthest observed galaxies in the Hubble deep field would be somewhere out by the Voyager 1 spacecraft ...11 billion miles away. And the entire observable universe would be 26 billion miles across ... about 4 times the orbit of Neptune.

And that's on a scale where the sun is the size of a full stop, and the Earth a mere inch away .

And if that doesn't make people stop fighting their silly religious wars, nothing will.

http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/609497-the-scale-of-the-universe

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#19 02-12-2011 7:04pm
davetherave

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Have a look at this.
Made by some nice boardsie in the Astro Forum, using places in Ireland to show scaled distance

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#20 02-12-2011 8:07pm
Plug

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Good post foxyboxer.

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#21 02-12-2011 8:19pm
Morlar

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#22 02-12-2011 11:12pm
El Weirdo

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foxyboxer wrote: »

When you observe the sun (with sunglasses!). That's what it looked like 8.32 minutes ago.

If the earth was a pin head. And the Sun was a Football, then the Sun would be 25 metres away.

Taking the Sun as a football, the nearest star (another football) to ours would be circa 5,600km away. In India, as the crow flies. :eek:

Try scrolling down that!

Put another way.

Over the years, I've seen a number of attempts to give an impression of the truly staggering scale of the universe by resorting to various scaled down comparisons. The following is in my view the very best one, not only because it gives a scale that is visualisable ... but also because it is based on a rather handy close coincidence between the Earth-Sun distance in inches, and the number of miles in a light year.

So, the Sun on this scale is the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence, and the Earth is an inch away.

Jupiter is 5 inches from the Sun. Saturn 9 inches. Neptune about 2.5 feet. The entire solar system including Pluto is about 6 feet across.

On this scale, the nearest star is 4 miles away. Most of the visible stars in the night sky are within 3000 miles, yet the center of the galaxy is 26,000 miles away....and the entire galaxy is 100,000 miles across. It would stretch half way to the moon.

The nearest large galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million miles away.....10 times further than the moon. The large Virgo cluster of galaxies is 60 million miles away...about the distance of Mars at its closest. And that's just nearby galaxies !

On this scale, the furthest observed galaxies in the Hubble deep field would be somewhere out by the Voyager 1 spacecraft ...11 billion miles away. And the entire observable universe would be 26 billion miles across ... about 4 times the orbit of Neptune.

And that's on a scale where the sun is the size of a full stop, and the Earth a mere inch away .

And if that doesn't make people stop fighting their silly religious wars, nothing will.

http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/609497-the-scale-of-the-universe

Needs more scrolling.

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#23 03-12-2011 12:16am
Paparazzo

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The moon is surprisingly far I thought!

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#24 03-12-2011 12:20am
Guy:Incognito

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What resolution does your monitor need to support to fit it all onscreen?

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#25 03-12-2011 12:36am
Samich

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To people mind blown by the fact they're seeing the suns image from 8 minutes or so ago.

The stars you see at night mightn't even be there before as the image you see is actually what the star looked like a million years ago (maybe not a million but very very very very very long time) as it takes that length of time for the image to travel. So if you see a shooting star, that star isn't even there anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

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#26 03-12-2011 12:52am
jiltloop

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Here's a great video that shows the scale of the universe and conversely the equally astonishing scale of cells and atoms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvTe1-a6Pdo

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#27 03-12-2011 1:08am
El Weirdo

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Samich wrote: »

So if you see a shooting star, that star isn't even there anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

Do you even know what a shooting star is?

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#28 03-12-2011 1:23am
Samich

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El Weirdo wrote: »

Do you even know what a shooting star is?

I failed. sorry.

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#29 03-12-2011 1:26am
El Weirdo

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Samich wrote: »

I failed. sorry.

Indeed you did.

And you were doing so well.

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#30 03-12-2011 1:40am
Samich

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El Weirdo wrote: »

Indeed you did.

And you were doing so well.

I just got too into it!!! :pac:

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#31 03-12-2011 1:47am
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Starz in yer eiez!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

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