There is a solar system trail in Melbourne Australia measured out at a 1:1000000000 scale with all planets sized to scale. It's a 5.9km walk from the sun all the way out to Pluto and Earth is only 150m. It's mind boggling just how vast our own solar system is yet alone the universe.
I saw that yesterday as well, I was just wondering how big or small it would have to be to virtually travel at the speed of light at a Earth velocity from one end to the other. Internet "It takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto". I can't get over that, I thought a few minutes.... Walking that path using the Planets as markers you are going a lot faster than the speed of light. If you were to build one where you drove at 100km/ph = the Speed of Light it would have to be 5.5km. (I have thought about this a couple of times. seems right now)
@@streamofconsciousness5826 The speed of light at that scale is 30 cm per second, so 5.5 hours to Pluto at its average distance from the Sun. Did you notice that the _nearest star,_ Proxima Centauri, was placed next to the Sun in that model? That was done because its distance (4.25 light-years) in that model is very close to the circumference of the *_real_* Earth or about 40,000 km.
I'm 84 years old and never have seen the solar system scaled like this. I'm blown away by sun's size and the distances. I had no idea there was so much space between the outer planets. Thank you!
If the distance from Earth to the Sun is 10 feet, then the distance to the nearest planet (Proxima Centauri b) is approximately 4,710,000,000 miles. If the size of the Sun is equal to the size of a golf ball, then the distance to the nearest planet would be approximately 474,597,240,523 miles. Quite far, isn't it?
@@boriskhromchenko2473 first of all, its the nearest star, not planet, 2nd of all, if the distance to the sun was 10ft, (1AU) then the scale would be 1:100,000,000,000, making the ~4 light year distance between us and proxima centauri become under 10 miles, not 4.7 billion. and if the sun was the size of a golf ball, (4.3 cm) that would make that scale 1:34,750,000,000, or make the distance between earth and proxima centauri 170 miles. if my maths is correct. large numbers, but not incomprehensable.
Don't be blown away byt his. It's all completely wrong. The Earth should be more than a football field away from the Sun to make that scale model even close to proper.
What really blows my mind is how it doesn’t matter how small you make the scale, pretty quickly your distances between planets, stars and galaxies become literally astronomical
What makes thing crazier for me is that the earth is still affected by the gravitational pull from the sun regardless of how distant it is. And the sun (and everything in the solar system) is still affected by the gravitational pull from the black hole at the center of the milky way. Just mind blowing how heavy/dense these are.
There's another good video conveying the same idea of vast distance. The guy gets a golf ball as a scale model of our sun and says, "at this scale, let's go and see where the closest star to the sun is"... he literally drives 1200km (745miles) to place the Proxima Centauri golf ball.
I didn't watch to the end. The Sun looks way too big in the video from the perspective of Earth. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out if I was going crazy.
Early in the video, I felt skeptical and got out my calculator. The distance from the center of the sun to the center of the Earth is 107.5 times the sun's diameter. Yes, he is using a different scale as explained.
Yes, same with me. The distance from mercury to sun is look too close with that size. And from Venus to earth is just like from moon to earth. But fortunately I watched it until the end before make any comment.
Some friends and i actually did this in school for a project, but with both size and distance at the same scale. We started with a sun about the same size as yours, and placing the planets we had to drive all over town. Pluto was actually in another town entirely. We wrote down the addresses and took pictures of each in case people wanted to check them out. Was very mind blowing to realize the distances involved though.
@@nickluther4423 Absolutely! They actually did an article in the local paper about it too. I live in a very rural area, and this is a pretty small town. And this was many years ago. But yeah, everyone loved it, especially the teachers.
If you think that’s mind blowing, try factoring in the nearest star. I believe on this scale, if the sun (orange balloon) was in London uk, you would have to travel to south of spain to put the other balloon there (Proxima Centuri)
@@komplex69 My mind was not blown at all by the scale. I already had a pretty good idea of the scale of the solar system. And when he set the Earth to 1 inch, and Sun at that distance, I noticed that is not anymore at the scale. I admit I was late to notice it, because I noticed it only he got back to Earth. I should have seen it when he placed Mercury. But I am aware that I am slow. Also, I know that light needs 8 minutes to reach the Earth, but still I did not realized that he is moving faster than light until he mentioned it. But you saying that at that scale, you could place the closest star on Earth, got me surprised too. If I would have had to guess, I would have said that should be maybe as far as Moon or further. But this is because It is just a wild guess, I have no idea about the actual distances. Few minutes later. I checked figures and you were partially right, but not on spot. Also I was right, but further from truth. The big difference was given by the fact that I considered the first scale and you the second. So, Earth is just a little more than half a billion inches in diameter. He made it about an inch, so scale is 1 to half billion. I divided that 40 trillion or whatever mean 4 followed by 13 zeroes divided by 500 million, and I got 80 000 km. So this a lot quite a lot closer than the Moon as I would have guessed. However, using the other scale, 100 times smaller, gives 800 km. Much closer than your statement. Is North, not South of Spain. Still you were wrong by a factor of two, and me by a factor of 4. Anyway, not so bad, for a wild guess, :)
@@psyience3213it's not even the right scale the distance between earth and Mars would be about 18,000 earth of that size. Which would be about 36 meters if earth is 2cms.
Size does matter it's true, Who wins the fight 9 times out of 10, a 600 lb Cat, or a 400 lb Cat? Small Stars don't S Nova, Black 🕳️, Neutron ⭐ etc... A chicks gotta pick between twins, ones hung like sperm whale. The others got a 3 inch AA battery for a pecker. Which twin is she going to date? Buddy's on to something, size does matter
I was in the middle of leaving the same comment when the video got to the part where he explains that he moved the decimal point 2 places to make everything fit on the field. Personally, I think that monkeying with the scale like that defeats the purpose. He could've just moved the decimal point over one more time and fit the whole thing on a piece of paper like a textbook, but everybody's got to stay busy, right.
If it isn't our size that makes us significant in the vastness of the celestial bodies of the solar system, I believe our ability to comprehend and recognize these distances is what makes us significant. We can do as much as understand that these distances do exist, and are finite.
@@peta-butter2744 :) I mean everything these days. It is to the point that I can't watch any regular broadcast or cable stuff as it is so slow! Guess I have created a monster for myself by getting used to the faster speed on everything I watch. LOL
The Smithsonian in Washington DC has a true scale model of the solar system spread out over the entire Mall. You have literally have to walk miles to see the entire thing. That’s the first time I truly understood the scale and it blew my mind at the time.
Whatever that model made you think how big the solar system is - double it. All the planets orbit at different rates so at any given time half of them are on the other side of the sun in the other direction. Only once in 400 billion years do they ever all line up in a row so most likely it has never happened yet.
Not really. If you think of spacetime as a fabric, then the Sun is by far the heaviest object on that fabric, and so it forms a "sinkhole" or "cone." For simplicity's sake, let's pretend the Sun is the only star in the universe. In this hypothetical universe, the "bend" in spacetime caused by the Sun would stretch out to infinity, but the further you got away from the Sun, the more gentle the angle of the cone wall becomes. Gentler angle = weaker gravitational pull. Nevertheless, any object _lighter_ than it's local gravity -- even at a distance of a million light years -- would eventually be pulled to the Sun (the object slowly "rolls down the slope" towards the cone's center -- the Sun) Now imagine you deposit a second star of equal size into this hypothetical universe, but waaaayyy out where the angle is infinitesimally gentle. In this case, the new star's own gravitational pull is much stronger than that of the Sun's pull at that distance, so instead of "rolling down the slope" to the Sun, it will form it's own sinkhole. However, now the gravitational reach of the Sun has been halved, because at a certain point between the two stars (halfway) you "go over the crest" where the two cone walls intersect. In other words, you "escaped" the Sun's pull but are now subject to the pull of the new star. That's why the Sun "has enough gravity to keep all the planets in orbit" --- because if a theoretical rogue planet were to pass within say, one light year beyond the Ort Cloud, it would eventually be pulled into our Solar System because it's within the Sun's "cone." Our nearest neighbor is Proxima Centauri - about four light years away - so any planetoid, rock, etc passing between us but further than 2 light years away would be pulled THERE. It would be within Proxima Centauri's "cone," and not ours.
It's make believe, it's nothing like this in reality, the made it up to make us feel irrelevant......gravity has never been proven, they just blag our heads...
@@sixstanger00this is a great explanation if this is how the universe works. I never looked at is this way, as gravity explained in videos never has explained it in this way. Their cgi wireframe models of the fabric have always led me to believe the fabric as flat, with dips (sinkholes) where the mass is found. But after a distance, that fabric becomes flat again once outside of the gravitational field from the massive object. Your explanation describes the entirety of spacetime fabric affected by objects, and only changing due to other massive objects. Is this correct? There is no point in the universe where the fabric of spacetime is neutral, and completely flat unaffected by the mass of objects due to great distance? And this holds true, no matter how minute, even if the universe were empty except for one massive object, thus affecting the entirely of the fabric, atleast in some degree? If this is true, that's very interesting and raises many more questions.
the realization that light travels that slowly at this scale was incredible and something i had never realized but the scale explanation at the end was astonishing. thank you for taking the time to make this
there was a scify book series I listened to, it wasnt a serious series, but the autho did take the slowness of light speed into consideration. for ships fighting, they would be about five or ten light seconds appart, so ships could drift left, and the ship firing would have no idea if they moved. it made kinetic wraponry less useful, since it was slower than light speed as well
Really strong work here. Now the next step is to understand where the nearest star is. If you use your distance model (and scale the size of the objects down) you will have a sun about the size of a quarter and, as you suggested, an earth the size of a grain of salt. Light would take 8 minutes to go from sun to earth and hours to get to the outer planets. The nearest star is FOUR LIGHTYEARS away. Let's say that star, named proxima centauri is also about the size of a quarter. To fit your distance model you would need to place that quarter 200 miles away! So our sun, the earth, the outer planets then nothing for 200 empty miles except the occasional comet, and random floating atoms, etc. Truly staggering. I hasten to add, please don't actually try to shrink down the solar system this way. If the earth were shrunk to about 3/8 inch it would become a black hole..... :)
It's incredible the distances involved ? We can see it but the human brain has not evolved to truly understand the cosmic scale ? This is one solar system in one average galaxy in a universe of over a trillion galaxies( and that's just the observable universe which for all we know is a fraction of the true size ?? It's so far beyond comprehension it would need a planet sized brain to even come close to an understanding
Great work. I love seeing things like this. We've got a scale model of the solar system in the middle of one of our parks here in town, and Neptune and Pluto (when it was constructed, Pluto was still a planet) are so far away that they are actually on sidewalks, one near the edge of the city, and one downtown, both miles away from the park. Also: 1 cm/sec is a hell of a fast snail.
That makes the sheer scale much more relatable than simulations. It is absolutely insane how large space is. And how slow light is and especially how far distances can be
It really makes Einstein's curved space/time theory easier to imagine though. It's difficult to picture gravity being able to hold all of the planets in orbit... But if the sun made a curved hole, then the planets, with enough speed, would revolve around the hole but never fall into the middle
I agree that this is the best scaled representation of the solar system I’ve ever seen. And seeing it, I’m struck how amazing it is that science - the stuff scientists do as opposed to politicians - has allowed us to send instruments to all the planets and beyond within my lifetime. Navigating such distances is beyond my comprehension. Amazing stuff. Great demo. Thx.
Great job! Every teacher should do this in science class! I taught my kids this when they were young, and it boggled their mind. One thing I'd like to do with a class (if I were a teacher) would be to place a beach ball (~24 inches) at the goal line of a football field to represent the Sun. Then give each student a pea (~1/4 inch) to represent Earth. Ask them each to place the pea on the football field to represent about how far away from the Sun they think the Earth should be.... (They'd have to walk 70 yards to accurately place the pea!)
Nice job Josh. Nice twist for your students when you throw in missing factor of 100. Personally I knew your diameter/distance scales were different right away as I had seen a scale model of the solar system at the Arecibo Observatory (RIP) in Puerto Rico when I visited in 2004. The long hike from the parking lot to the Arecibo visitors center wound up and around a hill. The "Sun" model was in the parking lot (size of a large grapefruit as I recall) and by the time one had completed the long (and hot and humid) hike to the visitors center one was at "Saturn" (if memory serves). A sign nearby noted that the next planet would be on the other side of the radio dish antenna, and that Pluto (still a planet in those days) would be on another hill some few kilometers away. Great way to impress upon one the true vastness of the distances.
3:08 we’re taking a giant step back right now. Possibly we’ll get to Mars, but I don’t think it will be in our lifetimes or even our children’s, maybe never. So much has changed in 4 short years.
What you said on about light only travels at approx 1 cm a second was incredible and made me understand and visualise that light isn’t that fast in the scale of the universe. Great video.
Light is actually super slow. Only in our perception it's super fast. But the speeds at the edges of our universe where the expansion is taking place, matter is moving much, much faster than light. Super scary.
I've seen this scale model so many times... and every time it is done (I've seen the one from Nat Geo where they did it in the desert and they have to drive miles to a mountain top) and even yours... always always boggles the mind. Thank you showing.
Another mind boggling tidbit. As they are, you can fit all the planets from the solar system in a line, in the space between the earth and the moon. Hence the scale being "wrong" for the size of the planets.
Something else to note not sure if maybe someone has already pointed it out. But to compound on your elaboration of the distance between each planet this scale illustration shows the planets lined up linearly which is a rare event. In actuality the distances at any given point are ridiculously far especially when considering the outer planets being on opposing sides of the sun. Incredible truly. Thank you for setting this up you have given me a perspective I’ve never been able to truly appreciate.
Ah yes, I was starting to have my doubts early in the video when such a massive sun appeared so close to the inner planets. When you started explaining the scale difference then it started making sense. At the laid out scale I would think the sun would look massive from the earth.
The McLaughlin Planetarium (Toronto, Canada) featured a show back in the late 1980's that did a true scale model, including correct distances. The Earth was the size of a pea, and the sun was a large beachball. They placed the beachball at one end of a football field and Pluto, a grain of sand at the other, and fit the other planets along the way. Then they ended by stating that the nearest star(s), Alpha Centauri, would be 2 beachballs placed on the opposite side of the Earth. It was a great little presentation, and I with I had a record of it!
I knew that looked familiar! I’m a Paly graduate (class of 83). I am also a teacher. I have been mainly teaching (mostly math & science) at tiny schools since graduating from UCSC in 88. This year I showed my kids a to-scale video done in the Mojave desert. This one is a lot easier to grasp initially and a good segue into the other and then Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten. Thanks for making this video (and treating this old Viking to some nostalgia)!
Scale models of things really help us understand more about what we know. There's a similar kind of model on the Mall by the Smithsonian that is quite fun to walk along to get a grasp of just how big our solar system is. What is also interesting to think about is even at the reduced distance scale, how little percent of the sun's energy hits the Earth and keeps it as warm as it does and makes life possible.
I did a paper model of the solar system when I was in high school. I forget the exact scale I used. But when I was making it, I went through reams of paper, most of which were completely blank. I eventually decided to abbreviate most of the distances. Even so, the model went up one side of the hallway, down the other side, and up through the middle one and a half times. It was actually kind of fun to do.
I did that in middle school on one sheet of project board. Yes I got a zero until my sisters high school teacher "who helped me" contacted my teacher and corrected her. I put empty paperclips on the board but spaced the correct distance apart at a factor of 10,000. That was the only way to make it fit. You can't even see the sun at that size. BTW the paperclips, I had bent to make one part stand up like a pin. Maybe it was 100,000, that was 30 years ago. Putting the candle strength each planet received from the sun was the pain and then painting it. Lot of work for that. Took me a week as I recall.
What I find even more amazing than all of this is the fact that we as a society cannot decide how to pronounce Uranus. This video has now introduced to me a fourth way to pronounce it.
Interesting that you should mention the Voyagers. I live in Toronto and several years ago I heard it explained this way. If home plate in the Skydome represents our Sun and the outfield fence represents the distance that the Voyagers travelled in thirty years, then the nearest star is represented by Kansas City, Missouri.
You're defying gravity all the time, try defying the speed of light, instead... So what's the big deal about gravity, I'm not impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1:04 - For those who haven't studied astronomy, that huge green thing at the top of the sun is called the Great Deku Tree. Future astronauts will be able to enter it with slingshots and kill all the spiders living inside.
Around 6:01, you say Uranus is about four times diameter of the Sun. I am guessing you meant Earth? That aside, fantastic video! I love the extra explanations at the end for a model that has sizes and distances to scale. Stuff like this is mind blowing, and of course then considering the galaxy, let alone the universe, is nearly impossible to really comprehend.
Some time back... I'm old, so that could have been decades, at this point... Somebody did a accurate Solar system model in (I think?) the Salt Flats of Utah. It was glorious.
Great stuff - an understandable perspective of the size of the planets, the speed of light, and the distances involved. The speed of light is s-l- o-o-w!
Well done. Thanks for this. Brings our physical insignificance into perspective. Think how unconsciously and without empathy we crush something smaller than a microbe by walking by a blade of grass or brushing by a leaf. That’s how it theoretically could end for us. Not by being conquered, but being unnoticed.
This video is awesome! The last couple of minutes are by far the coolest part. Im sorry that people feel the need to be so negative and nasty. Thank you for posting this video 😊
I never took an astronomy class in school, but have seen the “representation” made from colored foam balls. This was amazingly mor helpful as compared to that.
I did something like this with my sons 4th grade class. I didn't have the to scale planets, but we explained the size difference. Now this was back in 2002. I used the high school football field. At 1 inch equal to 1 million miles, from the sun to then planet Pluto was pretty far. Even at 1 inch, Pluto was a tad over 308 feet away from the sun. The class tried to see how fast they could run the distance. When we made it back to the elementary school, I had calculated the travel time from sun to Pluto. Then I wrote it down on the blackboard. I turned off the lights and then turned them back on. I said that's fast, almost instantly the lights were on again. Yall traveled on that scale and I wish I remembered what it was and then explained even walking is faster than the speed of light. They had so much fun that day. I miss doing this with kids now.
It is just simply amazing to think how light travels at such an immense distance at such a mind-boggling speed. Imagining watching a snail slither for 7 miles - and after that imagine that time spent with light travelling at the speed of light. Curious to know what average velocity you used for the snail so I can calculate how long it would take the little gomer to go 7 miles.
We already know the time. 5.5 hrs. Scale has to be adjusted accordingly and not the other way around. So measure the snail's velocity accordingly. 5.5hrs to travel 7miles.
I have seen multiple videos that give us the idea of the size and how ridiculously small we all are, and they are all fascinating to watch. I can definitely say that this one is probably my favourite, the way he speaks and says how even then it's not accurate, by giving us the idea of what it would look like if it was accurate is just amazing! What a great video, i wish i found it sooner, but better late than never.
I loved everything about this video from the very first to the very last moment. Thank you for putting together such a well planned and beautifully delivered presentation😊🙏
Amazing demonstration and explanation, it really made me understand a little more of what does the immensity of the universe means. I think this is video contributes a lot to what I think is one of the most fundamental qualities of science - to create a tangible meaning on the universe around us. Thank you!! already a fan
Gosh I can’t believe the amount of people complaining about the size distance disparity. It wouldn’t even be practical to set up that model at that point, although there are a couple examples worldwide.
You can make your own solar system model that is to scale with the size of the celestial objects and to distance. You need a playground ball, roughly 8in or 20 cm in diameter, for the Sun and then you need some pinheads, 2 peppercorns, and some various nuts for the planets and moons. I used the model below a few times for homeschool and public school presentations. The planet walk is 1,019 yards or roughly 0.6 miles or almost a kilometer long (0.93) and includes Pluto. Dropping Pluto saves 242 yards (221m). So the Sun and the planets are still visible and the model is short enough for an easy walk, even for young children. It doesn't take much extra work to figure out how far the moons are from the various planets, ie the Moon is 2.4 inches (6 cm) from Earth. During the walk, the asteroid belt starts 17 yards (paces) past Mars and lasts for 26 yards (23.7m). On average, the asteroids are 6 inches (15cm) apart at this scale and vastly smaller than the pinheads for even the largest asteroid. The mass of ALL of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are estimated to be just 3% of the mass of the Moon. For Proxima Centauri, pick somewhere roughly 3,990 miles (6,421km) from where you are doing the walk, as at this scale, that is how far the nearest star is from Earth. This really shows just how BIG the solar system is and just how small even the planets are. Yet that spacecraft are routinely sent to them, shows the accuracy that space agencies need. THE THOUSAND-YARD MODEL or, The Earth as a Peppercorn Copyright 1989 by Guy Ottewell Google the title and you should find various websites and pdfs with his model.
Mark Rober did a scale on a football field where the sun was a soccer ball placed on the end zone line and earth was a sewing pin head on the 26 yard line. I believe Neptune and Saturn were grapes. They had a few planets in the neighborhood outside the stadium. This is good, but I think his was bit more accurate.
That’s absolutely insane! Thanks for making this video. I’ve seen animated models before but the distance and size isn’t as impactful as here where it’s relative to objects and distances I’m familiar with. Very cool. A little scary lol
Nice thought exercise, I had considered working this out just for myself. I understand why you use two scales to make it work and appreciate the significance. Thank you! 👍
I have another interesting astronomical comparison I use for my astronomy challenged friends. Put a quarter on the goal line of an American football field. That represents our solar system out to the planet Neptune. Now put another quarter on the opposite goal line. That is the Alpha Centauri system, the star system closest to us. One can easily see the incredible distance involved, and also see now incredibly empty interstellar space really is.
I have a question -- sorry I know nada of astronomy/astrophysics: Given that the farthest revolving body, the apparent quasi-planet Pluto, would actually be ~ 7 miles away in Josh's representation of the sun and the other planets with respect to their sizes, how could the gravitational pull of the sun keep these farther planets within their rotations faithfully around it? You alluded to the Solar System as being in empty space, which forgive me contrary to your name I believe is a God-thing, but are there no other forces that could impact these 8-9 planets? But yet, these heavenly bodies stay aligned to the sun, and have done so for a good while.
@@robjohnston366 I can maybe help. As astounding as it seems that the sun's gravitational pull extends that far out, it extends much farther. To put it in context, the sun itself makes up 99.85 percent of the total mass in our solar system. Gravitational pull is complex. Our own moon's gravitational forces, as small as it may seem, causes the tides of our great oceans. There is even a measurable tidal affect from the forces of Jupiter. All planets have a measurable gravitational pull on each other. It is a freakish force, indeed. The massive distances between the planets is very difficult to envision but is even scarier when we look into the night sky and see all those stars. If the sun was the size of a pea, the NEAREST visible star, Alpha Centauri, would be about 128 miles away. And even it has a gravitational pull on the earth.
The force due to gravity between two objects is determined from multiplying the two masses, and dividing that by the square of the distance between them (multiplied by a gravitational constant). This was determined by Isaac Newton in about 1665. The movement of all the bodies in the Solar System conforms with the predictions of this theorem, including the Oort Cloud, which is vastly further away than the planets we are discussing. Pluto averages about 40AU from the Sun (an Astronomical Unit is the average Earth-Sun distance); the Kuiper Belt is a myriad of planetoids, of which Pluto is a deviant one, that goes out to maybe 60AU. The Oort Cloud is a vast number of icy bodies that most comets probably emanate from, and these are found between perhaps 5,000AU to as far as 100,000AU. Unlike everything else we've looked at here, they don't orbit in a flat plane round the Sun, they form a sort of spherical halo or "bubble" all round. But all of these orbits are explained by Newtonian mechanics, with no need to invoke any other force.
@@wulfgreyhame6857I think it was just trying to explain it using scale reference to help try and visualize the distances and scale,etc. But cool stuff. 👍
Thank you for this very educational video. As I was watching, I noticed the planet scale/distance scale discrepancy, so I really appreciate you addressing and clarifying that. Getting this kind of intuitive feel for the size of the solar system underscores just how vast it is, and how small yet beautiful and life-nurturing our home planet is. Very well done.
Years ago for a public open house, our astronomy club set up a "scale" of the planets along a road in the woods. The caveat was the size of the planets. To be more accurate, we'd have had to use sewing pins! For me, the most difficult thing to explain to people looking through the telescope at one if the planets, was trying to convey just how far away it was. Great video, my only suggestion would be to do a voice-over. The last part is lost with wind in the mic.
I did think mercury, venus and the earth were way too close to that big pumpkin. I loved the reflection at the end, if only all scientists would contemplate like that.
Yeah, the scale here is way off! Earth is over 100 Sun-diameters distant to the Sun (meaning you could fit over 100 Suns (about 107) between the Sun and the Earth). The Moon is about 30 Earth-diameters distant to the Earth - which in this model would place it closer to Mars or Venus than Earth. Disappointing.
he explained later the used different scales for the size of the planets than the distance between them. the distances are proportional and accurate, and also is the size, however for both to be at the same scale it would be impractical.
@@EMoritzxD I hadn't watched more than about 3 and a half minutes until I saw replies to my comment. He didn't hint that he was using two different scales till 7:45 minutes in, and seemed to actually want/expect viewers to assume he was using a consistent scale throughout until his reveal near the end. Didn't work for me.
This was the best demonstration I have ever seen! Loved it ❤ Now why could not teachers back in the day threw any of the grades taught classes like this. This truly brings a whole different perspective to everything I was taught. The one little fact you also made about the light traveling at the speed of a caterpillar also a big key in understanding actually how slow really the speed of light really is over vast distances and also helped to really understand larger scale distances like this. Before this becase of the books the sience models the education system uses no one is really being taught this correctly. Its now 40 years later since I graduated and I know have a better understanding, man this could of affected how I went threw like or view things over the years. Thank you and lets get your method any technical approach mandated for how this is taught in schools. Simply perfict, BRAVO TO YOU! 👏👏👏👏🏆
Believe it or not, the Sun (pumpkin) would actually be a little bit bigger. The Sun's diameter is 109 times that of Earth's, so 109 times 1 inch = 109 inches = 9 feet. But that pumpkin looks maybe 7 feet tall or so.
Why, if Mercury is I/2 AU from the Sun, would one need to walk "another" two football fields beyond Mercury's revised and corrected placement as stated toward the end of the video (at 9:16)? Wouldn't merely one additional football field be sufficient?
Great question. Mercury is approximately 0.4 AU from the Sun and the Earth is by definition 1.0 AU from the Sun. This makes Earth about 2.5x further from the Sun than Mercury. So, it's a matter of rounding (2.5 up to 3). If I were being more accurate I would have said "another 1.5 football fields". Thanks for the question!
Excellent explanation! Thank you. The vastness of the universe is unfathomable. Vast, massive, huge, gigantic doesn't get close to understanding its enormaty.
They could see gravitationally disturbing Uranus’ orbit and could conclude that there had to be an extra planet. Then they could then calculate where to look for it with the telescope.
This video makes me appreciate founders of Astronomy finding and identifying the early planets back in 17, 18th century with rudimentary telescopes, pieces of manual mace paper ink and quill with all this empty space!!
There is a solar system trail in Melbourne Australia measured out at a 1:1000000000 scale with all planets sized to scale. It's a 5.9km walk from the sun all the way out to Pluto and Earth is only 150m. It's mind boggling just how vast our own solar system is yet alone the universe.
I saw that yesterday as well, I was just wondering how big or small it would have to be to virtually travel at the speed of light at a Earth velocity from one end to the other.
Internet "It takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto". I can't get over that, I thought a few minutes.... Walking that path using the Planets as markers you are going a lot faster than the speed of light.
If you were to build one where you drove at 100km/ph = the Speed of Light it would have to be 5.5km. (I have thought about this a couple of times. seems right now)
@@streamofconsciousness5826
The speed of light at that scale is 30 cm per second, so 5.5 hours to Pluto at its average distance from the Sun.
Did you notice that the _nearest star,_ Proxima Centauri, was placed next to the Sun in that model? That was done because its distance (4.25 light-years) in that model is very close to the circumference of the *_real_* Earth or about 40,000 km.
Bigger than Texas, fur shure, good buddy.🇨🇱
@@streamofconsciousness5826
Yes, and your experience there is proof that we _CAN_ walk at the speed of light! 😊
@@HighlanderNorth1lol
I'm 84 years old and never have seen the solar system scaled like this. I'm blown away by sun's size and the distances. I had no idea there was so much space between the outer planets. Thank you!
this is a wrong scale as well, it's much greater and more haunting
If the distance from Earth to the Sun is 10 feet, then the distance to the nearest planet (Proxima Centauri b) is approximately 4,710,000,000 miles. If the size of the Sun is equal to the size of a golf ball, then the distance to the nearest planet would be approximately 474,597,240,523 miles. Quite far, isn't it?
@@boriskhromchenko2473 completely under rated comment. Thank you!
@@boriskhromchenko2473 first of all, its the nearest star, not planet, 2nd of all, if the distance to the sun was 10ft, (1AU) then the scale would be 1:100,000,000,000, making the ~4 light year distance between us and proxima centauri become under 10 miles, not 4.7 billion.
and if the sun was the size of a golf ball, (4.3 cm) that would make that scale 1:34,750,000,000, or make the distance between earth and proxima centauri 170 miles.
if my maths is correct. large numbers, but not incomprehensable.
Don't be blown away byt his. It's all completely wrong. The Earth should be more than a football field away from the Sun to make that scale model even close to proper.
What really blows my mind is how it doesn’t matter how small you make the scale, pretty quickly your distances between planets, stars and galaxies become literally astronomical
What makes thing crazier for me is that the earth is still affected by the gravitational pull from the sun regardless of how distant it is. And the sun (and everything in the solar system) is still affected by the gravitational pull from the black hole at the center of the milky way. Just mind blowing how heavy/dense these are.
There's another good video conveying the same idea of vast distance. The guy gets a golf ball as a scale model of our sun and says, "at this scale, let's go and see where the closest star to the sun is"... he literally drives 1200km (745miles) to place the Proxima Centauri golf ball.
@@lordfluxingtonFermi-paradox-chuds quaking in their moon boots
@@lordfluxingtonjust watched, that was a good video thanks for the rec 🙏
Worthless 🎉
I knew this was wayyyy too cramped to be realistic, I'm glad he corrected at the end
I didn't watch to the end. The Sun looks way too big in the video from the perspective of Earth. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out if I was going crazy.
If only there was a longer dimension in a football field. With lines showing distance..
6:15 "The planet Uranus. About 4 times the diameter...OF THE SUN (sic)"
*Earth.
@@aneternallagree. How many degrees of arc...in demo. In reality.
Demo view from Uranus shows sun about right ftom earth real.
Yeah... if it was correct, the moon would be further than where he put Mars marble on this field
I was really skeptical until you explained the different scales you used to measure distance and size at 7:44. Well done, sir.
Early in the video, I felt skeptical and got out my calculator. The distance from the center of the sun to the center of the Earth is 107.5 times the sun's diameter. Yes, he is using a different scale as explained.
@@erintyres3609 Wish the video was not titled "(nearly) scale solar system" then lol. It's not that hard to find a field.
Yes, same with me. The distance from mercury to sun is look too close with that size. And from Venus to earth is just like from moon to earth. But fortunately I watched it until the end before make any comment.
yeah it felt fishy lol it seemed like it should have been longer from my recollection
Some friends and i actually did this in school for a project, but with both size and distance at the same scale. We started with a sun about the same size as yours, and placing the planets we had to drive all over town. Pluto was actually in another town entirely. We wrote down the addresses and took pictures of each in case people wanted to check them out. Was very mind blowing to realize the distances involved though.
I hope you got an A
Theres a place that has statues of the planets placed across the town that actully depicts the distance of them in scale.
@@nickluther4423 Absolutely! They actually did an article in the local paper about it too. I live in a very rural area, and this is a pretty small town. And this was many years ago. But yeah, everyone loved it, especially the teachers.
@@akhenaeravaaldrynFor sure they enjoyed Uranus and spent some time probing it. The things they do in the name of education!
@@ba2724oh come on 🎉
This model is honestly one of the best and absolute mind blowing demonstrations. I never realized how far the distances are between the gas giants.
If you think that’s mind blowing, try factoring in the nearest star. I believe on this scale, if the sun (orange balloon) was in London uk, you would have to travel to south of spain to put the other balloon there (Proxima Centuri)
@@komplex69 I just watched that one last night! i commented how utterly mind blowing it is too. and it was a golf ball lol
@@psyience3213 ha yea, that’s the one 😁
@@komplex69 My mind was not blown at all by the scale. I already had a pretty good idea of the scale of the solar system.
And when he set the Earth to 1 inch, and Sun at that distance, I noticed that is not anymore at the scale.
I admit I was late to notice it, because I noticed it only he got back to Earth. I should have seen it when he placed Mercury.
But I am aware that I am slow.
Also, I know that light needs 8 minutes to reach the Earth, but still I did not realized that he is moving faster than light until he mentioned it.
But you saying that at that scale, you could place the closest star on Earth, got me surprised too. If I would have had to guess, I would have said that should be maybe as far as Moon or further. But this is because It is just a wild guess,
I have no idea about the actual distances.
Few minutes later. I checked figures and you were partially right, but not on spot. Also I was right, but further from truth.
The big difference was given by the fact that I considered the first scale and you the second.
So, Earth is just a little more than half a billion inches in diameter.
He made it about an inch, so scale is 1 to half billion.
I divided that 40 trillion or whatever mean 4 followed by 13 zeroes divided by 500 million, and I got 80 000 km. So this a lot quite a lot closer than the Moon as I would have guessed.
However, using the other scale, 100 times smaller, gives 800 km. Much closer than your statement. Is North, not South of Spain. Still you were wrong by a factor of two, and me by a factor of 4.
Anyway, not so bad, for a wild guess, :)
@@psyience3213it's not even the right scale the distance between earth and Mars would be about 18,000 earth of that size. Which would be about 36 meters if earth is 2cms.
When you show it on a scale like this I find size in space hard to comprehend. Well done, good job.
I love that this just took me on a journey through the size and scale of the solar system just to tell me that "size doesn't matter".
A true hero.
Size does matter it's true, Who wins the fight 9 times out of 10, a 600 lb Cat, or a 400 lb Cat? Small Stars don't S Nova, Black 🕳️, Neutron ⭐ etc...
A chicks gotta pick between twins, ones hung like sperm whale. The others got a 3 inch AA battery for a pecker. Which twin is she going to date?
Buddy's on to something, size does matter
Tell that to my ex-wife!! D'oh!! (sorry, couldn't resist lol) 🤣🤣🤣🤣
If the pumpkin is about 900,000 mile dia, and 90,000,000 miles from earth, shouldn't the earth be 100 pumpkins away? Looks too close.
You are correct. The scale shown is off by approx. a factor of 100x. The last 2 minutes of the video address this.
weellll it is 103 suns[pumpkins] away
109 pumpkins
I was in the middle of leaving the same comment when the video got to the part where he explains that he moved the decimal point 2 places to make everything fit on the field.
Personally, I think that monkeying with the scale like that defeats the purpose. He could've just moved the decimal point over one more time and fit the whole thing on a piece of paper like a textbook, but everybody's got to stay busy, right.
Remember planets are usually on opposite sides of the sun making the distances much greater.
Not only was this an eloquent and informative talk on the move but you did it in one take. Impressive stuff!
If it isn't our size that makes us significant in the vastness of the celestial bodies of the solar system, I believe our ability to comprehend and recognize these distances is what makes us significant. We can do as much as understand that these distances do exist, and are finite.
Play at 1.75 speed you wont regret it
I just about always play everything at at least 1.5 speed :)
Lmao
Yeah he talks to slow lol
@@peta-butter2744 :) I mean everything these days. It is to the point that I can't watch any regular broadcast or cable stuff as it is so slow! Guess I have created a monster for myself by getting used to the faster speed on everything I watch. LOL
I can’t cope with his voice at that speed. He sounds like Ben Shapiro.
Man, the two different scales you use really threw me off for most of the video. I just kept thinking "that can't possibly be right!"
What I find fascinating is how powerful gravity is. The Sun is so far away, yet Pluto can't break free of its orbit around it.
In reality, gravity is a weak force compared to magnetism, but the masses involved are just so enormous that it doesn't matter
@@ctsquad501st3in reality also, gravity is still a mystery. We don’t fully understand the origin of it.
@@KryptonKr I created it
@@trr7fd Wow, how?
@@KryptonKr it was pretty easy actually
One of the best presentations I've ever seen of something we all think we know. Brilliant, and eloquent.
The Smithsonian in Washington DC has a true scale model of the solar system spread out over the entire Mall. You have literally have to walk miles to see the entire thing. That’s the first time I truly understood the scale and it blew my mind at the time.
and that is with a sun the size of a grapefruit. sadly, the system in this video does not convey a true sense of scale.
although he corrects it at the end, and in the description, i think most viewers are going to think his model is to actual scale, which is a bummer.
At the Smithsonian scale, the nearest star would be about 2,000 miles away....or almost to Los Angeles from D.C.
Whatever that model made you think how big the solar system is - double it. All the planets orbit at different rates so at any given time half of them are on the other side of the sun in the other direction. Only once in 400 billion years do they ever all line up in a row so most likely it has never happened yet.
@@wally7856good point. we are just looking at the radius there.
Anyone could understand this concept thanks to this video. Well spoken and simple explanation. You’d make a great teacher.
You should read his video description
Earth is Flat!
shut up
@@BaroqueBlues it is... compared to your mother.
@@fukdimudi no, it's compared to your mind
It's amazing that the sun has enough gravity to keep all the planets in orbit around it especially considering how far away they are from it.
Not really. If you think of spacetime as a fabric, then the Sun is by far the heaviest object on that fabric, and so it forms a "sinkhole" or "cone."
For simplicity's sake, let's pretend the Sun is the only star in the universe. In this hypothetical universe, the "bend" in spacetime caused by the Sun would stretch out to infinity, but the further you got away from the Sun, the more gentle the angle of the cone wall becomes. Gentler angle = weaker gravitational pull. Nevertheless, any object _lighter_ than it's local gravity -- even at a distance of a million light years -- would eventually be pulled to the Sun (the object slowly "rolls down the slope" towards the cone's center -- the Sun)
Now imagine you deposit a second star of equal size into this hypothetical universe, but waaaayyy out where the angle is infinitesimally gentle. In this case, the new star's own gravitational pull is much stronger than that of the Sun's pull at that distance, so instead of "rolling down the slope" to the Sun, it will form it's own sinkhole. However, now the gravitational reach of the Sun has been halved, because at a certain point between the two stars (halfway) you "go over the crest" where the two cone walls intersect. In other words, you "escaped" the Sun's pull but are now subject to the pull of the new star.
That's why the Sun "has enough gravity to keep all the planets in orbit" --- because if a theoretical rogue planet were to pass within say, one light year beyond the Ort Cloud, it would eventually be pulled into our Solar System because it's within the Sun's "cone." Our nearest neighbor is Proxima Centauri - about four light years away - so any planetoid, rock, etc passing between us but further than 2 light years away would be pulled THERE. It would be within Proxima Centauri's "cone," and not ours.
Doug s my name is Doug s too is your last name Smith to?
It's make believe, it's nothing like this in reality, the made it up to make us feel irrelevant......gravity has never been proven, they just blag our heads...
It’s especially amazing when there are stars large enough to hit the orbit of Jupiter.
@@sixstanger00this is a great explanation if this is how the universe works. I never looked at is this way, as gravity explained in videos never has explained it in this way. Their cgi wireframe models of the fabric have always led me to believe the fabric as flat, with dips (sinkholes) where the mass is found. But after a distance, that fabric becomes flat again once outside of the gravitational field from the massive object.
Your explanation describes the entirety of spacetime fabric affected by objects, and only changing due to other massive objects. Is this correct? There is no point in the universe where the fabric of spacetime is neutral, and completely flat unaffected by the mass of objects due to great distance? And this holds true, no matter how minute, even if the universe were empty except for one massive object, thus affecting the entirely of the fabric, atleast in some degree?
If this is true, that's very interesting and raises many more questions.
1:50 it would be helpful at this point to mention that the distances are not to scale.
the realization that light travels that slowly at this scale was incredible and something i had never realized but the scale explanation at the end was astonishing. thank you for taking the time to make this
there was a scify book series I listened to, it wasnt a serious series, but the autho did take the slowness of light speed into consideration. for ships fighting, they would be about five or ten light seconds appart, so ships could drift left, and the ship firing would have no idea if they moved. it made kinetic wraponry less useful, since it was slower than light speed as well
It means that you are not educated enough
@@alien3200what’s it like to have no friends?
@@ivanmondragon2735 i have friends 😂
What makes it weirder is although light is slow compared to the distances, from light's POV crossing those distances is instantaneous.
Really strong work here. Now the next step is to understand where the nearest star is. If you use your distance model (and scale the size of the objects down) you will have a sun about the size of a quarter and, as you suggested, an earth the size of a grain of salt. Light would take 8 minutes to go from sun to earth and hours to get to the outer planets.
The nearest star is FOUR LIGHTYEARS away. Let's say that star, named proxima centauri is also about the size of a quarter. To fit your distance model you would need to place that quarter 200 miles away! So our sun, the earth, the outer planets then nothing for 200 empty miles except the occasional comet, and random floating atoms, etc.
Truly staggering.
I hasten to add, please don't actually try to shrink down the solar system this way. If the earth were shrunk to about 3/8 inch it would become a black hole..... :)
Oh man I wanted to shrink the earth you destroyed my plans!
Honey I shrunk the earth! 😂
"Don't try this at home planet."
ruclips.net/video/vcJHHU9upyE/видео.htmlsi=zOJtfVDxAM_6AbD3
Guy in the Above video showed how far is the nearest star
Love how simplified and easy to understand is your explanation! Thank you for sharing!🙂
It's incredible the distances involved ? We can see it but the human brain has not evolved to truly understand the cosmic scale ? This is one solar system in one average galaxy in a universe of over a trillion galaxies( and that's just the observable universe which for all we know is a fraction of the true size ?? It's so far beyond comprehension it would need a planet sized brain to even come close to an understanding
Earth is Flat.............
Great work. I love seeing things like this. We've got a scale model of the solar system in the middle of one of our parks here in town, and Neptune and Pluto (when it was constructed, Pluto was still a planet) are so far away that they are actually on sidewalks, one near the edge of the city, and one downtown, both miles away from the park. Also: 1 cm/sec is a hell of a fast snail.
I’m here to support Pluto.
✊
✊🏻
Okay Jerry
I stand with Jupiter
✊️
That makes the sheer scale much more relatable than simulations. It is absolutely insane how large space is. And how slow light is and especially how far distances can be
For the sun to be so far away, it's amazing that it still...has gravitational pull on the far away planets....
I mean... it does encompass 99.9% of the total mass of our solar system.
@@fridiefamily9989 are u a scientist 👀
It really makes Einstein's curved space/time theory easier to imagine though. It's difficult to picture gravity being able to hold all of the planets in orbit... But if the sun made a curved hole, then the planets, with enough speed, would revolve around the hole but never fall into the middle
One of the many things this video opened my eyes to was that exactly - gravity is such a more phenomenal, mysterious force than I ever grasped before!
@@EventHorizonPrdctns its really amazing and in my opinion still misunderstood in my opinion
I agree that this is the best scaled representation of the solar system I’ve ever seen. And seeing it, I’m struck how amazing it is that science - the stuff scientists do as opposed to politicians - has allowed us to send instruments to all the planets and beyond within my lifetime. Navigating such distances is beyond my comprehension. Amazing stuff. Great demo. Thx.
It's not just the distance you have to be close
Absolutely mind-boggling.
Great job! Every teacher should do this in science class! I taught my kids this when they were young, and it boggled their mind. One thing I'd like to do with a class (if I were a teacher) would be to place a beach ball (~24 inches) at the goal line of a football field to represent the Sun. Then give each student a pea (~1/4 inch) to represent Earth. Ask them each to place the pea on the football field to represent about how far away from the Sun they think the Earth should be.... (They'd have to walk 70 yards to accurately place the pea!)
Nice job Josh. Nice twist for your students when you throw in missing factor of 100.
Personally I knew your diameter/distance scales were different right away as I had seen a scale model of the solar system at the Arecibo Observatory (RIP) in Puerto Rico when I visited in 2004. The long hike from the parking lot to the Arecibo visitors center wound up and around a hill. The "Sun" model was in the parking lot (size of a large grapefruit as I recall) and by the time one had completed the long (and hot and humid) hike to the visitors center one was at "Saturn" (if memory serves). A sign nearby noted that the next planet would be on the other side of the radio dish antenna, and that Pluto (still a planet in those days) would be on another hill some few kilometers away. Great way to impress upon one the true vastness of the distances.
Damn. You were at Arecibo. That’s freaking awesome.
It was very clear as soon as he placed the earth, you don't look up at the sun and have it fill half the sky!
@@jrjubachit's a great tragedy what happened to Arecibo.
:(
@@davecrupel2817 Yes! I was quite saddened by that.
3:08 we’re taking a giant step back right now. Possibly we’ll get to Mars, but I don’t think it will be in our lifetimes or even our children’s, maybe never. So much has changed in 4 short years.
What you said on about light only travels at approx 1 cm a second was incredible and made me understand and visualise that light isn’t that fast in the scale of the universe. Great video.
Light is actually super slow. Only in our perception it's super fast. But the speeds at the edges of our universe where the expansion is taking place, matter is moving much, much faster than light. Super scary.
@@unforgettablejazzfusion5546 mind blowing.
@@unforgettablejazzfusion5546 It takes light approximately 4 hours to travel from the Sun to Neptune.
I've seen this scale model so many times... and every time it is done (I've seen the one from Nat Geo where they did it in the desert and they have to drive miles to a mountain top) and even yours... always always boggles the mind. Thank you showing.
Another mind boggling tidbit. As they are, you can fit all the planets from the solar system in a line, in the space between the earth and the moon. Hence the scale being "wrong" for the size of the planets.
Well done in demonstrating the size comparisons between the planets and the vast distances between the planets and the sun. Thanks!!
Something else to note not sure if maybe someone has already pointed it out. But to compound on your elaboration of the distance between each planet this scale illustration shows the planets lined up linearly which is a rare event. In actuality the distances at any given point are ridiculously far especially when considering the outer planets being on opposing sides of the sun. Incredible truly. Thank you for setting this up you have given me a perspective I’ve never been able to truly appreciate.
Ah yes, I was starting to have my doubts early in the video when such a massive sun appeared so close to the inner planets. When you started explaining the scale difference then it started making sense. At the laid out scale I would think the sun would look massive from the earth.
This means that it's not a "scale model of the solar system" as the title states.
@@AstroTibsYep. It’s useless.
Fantastic explanation. One of the best distance of the planets I've seen. Really made me think and be in awww.
How can this be so different than what Digital Astronaut is showing? ruclips.net/video/NC4pLkUYpjA/видео.html
The McLaughlin Planetarium (Toronto, Canada) featured a show back in the late 1980's that did a true scale model, including correct distances. The Earth was the size of a pea, and the sun was a large beachball. They placed the beachball at one end of a football field and Pluto, a grain of sand at the other, and fit the other planets along the way. Then they ended by stating that the nearest star(s), Alpha Centauri, would be 2 beachballs placed on the opposite side of the Earth. It was a great little presentation, and I with I had a record of it!
I was told: if it’s 6inches from the sun to Pluto, the next sun is 1km away
You need to decide which measuring system you are going to use.
I’m English so it’s both
@@leetori1there isnt another sun
*star
I knew that looked familiar! I’m a Paly graduate (class of 83). I am also a teacher. I have been mainly teaching (mostly math & science) at tiny schools since graduating from UCSC in 88. This year I showed my kids a to-scale video done in the Mojave desert. This one is a lot easier to grasp initially and a good segue into the other and then Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten. Thanks for making this video (and treating this old Viking to some nostalgia)!
Scale models of things really help us understand more about what we know. There's a similar kind of model on the Mall by the Smithsonian that is quite fun to walk along to get a grasp of just how big our solar system is. What is also interesting to think about is even at the reduced distance scale, how little percent of the sun's energy hits the Earth and keeps it as warm as it does and makes life possible.
Uranus doesn't look 4 times the diameter of the Sun.
I did a paper model of the solar system when I was in high school. I forget the exact scale I used. But when I was making it, I went through reams of paper, most of which were completely blank.
I eventually decided to abbreviate most of the distances.
Even so, the model went up one side of the hallway, down the other side, and up through the middle one and a half times.
It was actually kind of fun to do.
I did that in middle school on one sheet of project board. Yes I got a zero until my sisters high school teacher "who helped me" contacted my teacher and corrected her. I put empty paperclips on the board but spaced the correct distance apart at a factor of 10,000. That was the only way to make it fit. You can't even see the sun at that size. BTW the paperclips, I had bent to make one part stand up like a pin. Maybe it was 100,000, that was 30 years ago. Putting the candle strength each planet received from the sun was the pain and then painting it. Lot of work for that. Took me a week as I recall.
never in my life did I think my jaw would drop after seeing an inflatable pumpkin
What I find even more amazing than all of this is the fact that we as a society cannot decide how to pronounce Uranus. This video has now introduced to me a fourth way to pronounce it.
It would have been nice if you did Voyager 1 and 2 as well and then explained just how long it took for them to get to that distance. Great video man!
Interesting that you should mention the Voyagers. I live in Toronto and several years ago I heard it explained this way.
If home plate in the Skydome represents our Sun and the outfield fence represents the distance that the Voyagers travelled in thirty years, then the nearest star is represented by Kansas City, Missouri.
They are both the fastest man made objects ever... but on a cosmic scale, they are indeed crawling.
You're defying gravity all the time, try defying the speed of light, instead... So what's the big deal about gravity, I'm not impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if the earth was a ferrero rocher voyager 1 would be 71km away if we meausured in march 23. That is a speed of 17cm per hour.
@@v4v819 you replied to the wrong comment lol. You meant to reply to the one above.
1:04 - For those who haven't studied astronomy, that huge green thing at the top of the sun is called the Great Deku Tree.
Future astronauts will be able to enter it with slingshots and kill all the spiders living inside.
The only information I wanted or missed was how far on El Camino Real would you need to go to the next star? Our farthest satellite is past Pluto
Around 6:01, you say Uranus is about four times diameter of the Sun. I am guessing you meant Earth? That aside, fantastic video! I love the extra explanations at the end for a model that has sizes and distances to scale. Stuff like this is mind blowing, and of course then considering the galaxy, let alone the universe, is nearly impossible to really comprehend.
He meant that your anus is four times the diameter of sun
Yrea
He says Saturn, but IT sounds like Sun, I guess
@@ghostreh I think he said Sun, and if he said Saturn he would still be very wrong.
Some time back... I'm old, so that could have been decades, at this point...
Somebody did a accurate Solar system model in (I think?) the Salt Flats of Utah.
It was glorious.
Somebody did that 20yrs ago & that video may still be here. The did that model at night with lighted objects to scale
Great stuff - an understandable perspective of the size of the planets, the speed of light, and the distances involved. The speed of light is s-l- o-o-w!
The speed of light is fast as fook ...fastest thing in the universe.. it's just the distances are so vast it makes it look slow
First really understandable explanation of the speed of light. Bravo!
Well done. Thanks for this. Brings our physical insignificance into perspective. Think how unconsciously and without empathy we crush something smaller than a microbe by walking by a blade of grass or brushing by a leaf. That’s how it theoretically could end for us. Not by being conquered, but being unnoticed.
Phenomenal, I knew things were really spread out, but your demonstration gave it some understandable scale. Well done.
Great Job! Saw another video a while back where some guys made a scale model out in the salt flats. Even simulated orbits with atv's. Was remarkable.
This video is awesome! The last couple of minutes are by far the coolest part. Im sorry that people feel the need to be so negative and nasty. Thank you for posting this video 😊
I never took an astronomy class in school, but have seen the “representation” made from colored foam balls. This was amazingly mor helpful as compared to that.
One of the best explanations and demonstration of our solar system I've ever seen!
4:23 in the background, there’s a yellow bus ready to take you to a galaxy far far away.
🚌💨 😂😂😂
I did something like this with my sons 4th grade class. I didn't have the to scale planets, but we explained the size difference. Now this was back in 2002. I used the high school football field. At 1 inch equal to 1 million miles, from the sun to then planet Pluto was pretty far.
Even at 1 inch, Pluto was a tad over 308 feet away from the sun. The class tried to see how fast they could run the distance. When we made it back to the elementary school, I had calculated the travel time from sun to Pluto. Then I wrote it down on the blackboard. I turned off the lights and then turned them back on. I said that's fast, almost instantly the lights were on again. Yall traveled on that scale and I wish I remembered what it was and then explained even walking is faster than the speed of light. They had so much fun that day. I miss doing this with kids now.
It is just simply amazing to think how light travels at such an immense distance at such a mind-boggling speed. Imagining watching a snail slither for 7 miles - and after that imagine that time spent with light travelling at the speed of light. Curious to know what average velocity you used for the snail so I can calculate how long it would take the little gomer to go 7 miles.
Oh, and thanks for the great time and effort to give us the perspective.
We already know the time. 5.5 hrs. Scale has to be adjusted accordingly and not the other way around. So measure the snail's velocity accordingly. 5.5hrs to travel 7miles.
I have seen multiple videos that give us the idea of the size and how ridiculously small we all are, and they are all fascinating to watch. I can definitely say that this one is probably my favourite, the way he speaks and says how even then it's not accurate, by giving us the idea of what it would look like if it was accurate is just amazing! What a great video, i wish i found it sooner, but better late than never.
I loved everything about this video from the very first to the very last moment. Thank you for putting together such a well planned and beautifully delivered presentation😊🙏
Amazing demonstration and explanation, it really made me understand a little more of what does the immensity of the universe means. I think this is video contributes a lot to what I think is one of the most fundamental qualities of science - to create a tangible meaning on the universe around us. Thank you!! already a fan
Gosh I can’t believe the amount of people complaining about the size distance disparity. It wouldn’t even be practical to set up that model at that point, although there are a couple examples worldwide.
You can make your own solar system model that is to scale with the size of the celestial objects and to distance. You need a playground ball, roughly 8in or 20 cm in diameter, for the Sun and then you need some pinheads, 2 peppercorns, and some various nuts for the planets and moons. I used the model below a few times for homeschool and public school presentations. The planet walk is 1,019 yards or roughly 0.6 miles or almost a kilometer long (0.93) and includes Pluto. Dropping Pluto saves 242 yards (221m). So the Sun and the planets are still visible and the model is short enough for an easy walk, even for young children.
It doesn't take much extra work to figure out how far the moons are from the various planets, ie the Moon is 2.4 inches (6 cm) from Earth. During the walk, the asteroid belt starts 17 yards (paces) past Mars and lasts for 26 yards (23.7m). On average, the asteroids are 6 inches (15cm) apart at this scale and vastly smaller than the pinheads for even the largest asteroid. The mass of ALL of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are estimated to be just 3% of the mass of the Moon. For Proxima Centauri, pick somewhere roughly 3,990 miles (6,421km) from where you are doing the walk, as at this scale, that is how far the nearest star is from Earth.
This really shows just how BIG the solar system is and just how small even the planets are. Yet that spacecraft are routinely sent to them, shows the accuracy that space agencies need.
THE THOUSAND-YARD MODEL
or, The Earth as a Peppercorn
Copyright 1989 by Guy Ottewell
Google the title and you should find various websites and pdfs with his model.
Mark Rober did a scale on a football field where the sun was a soccer ball placed on the end zone line and earth was a sewing pin head on the 26 yard line. I believe Neptune and Saturn were grapes. They had a few planets in the neighborhood outside the stadium.
This is good, but I think his was bit more accurate.
I didn’t know the planets were THAT far apart. Thanks for the lesson. Captivated me all the way through
The distances are even further than that when you consider the planetary alignment isn’t in a nice straight line as depicted here. It’s staggered.
To blow your mind even more, just know this video wasn't even close! Search "Mark Rober Solar System" for an accurate video.
The scales are completely off in this video, the planets are either far too big or much too close.
ruclips.net/video/dCSIXLIzhzk/видео.htmlsi=3NP3M1dxCa7Iz_tO
This one is way better.
Did you watch until the last few minutes where your mind is even more blown?
This model is fantastic! Great job and really inspired me to build one at my school 😊
Please don’t.
@@toddworsham1949 ???
Thanks for hammering this out before intergalactic football practice started. I really think the Gas Giants have a chance this year.
Yep! They came really close to beating the red dwarves last season
@@PS3DJ09A real nail biter.
That’s absolutely insane! Thanks for making this video. I’ve seen animated models before but the distance and size isn’t as impactful as here where it’s relative to objects and distances I’m familiar with. Very cool. A little scary lol
Nice thought exercise, I had considered working this out just for myself. I understand why you use two scales to make it work and appreciate the significance. Thank you! 👍
Just scary to think... amazing job!
I have another interesting astronomical comparison I use for my astronomy challenged friends.
Put a quarter on the goal line of an American football field. That represents our solar system out to the planet Neptune. Now put another quarter on the opposite goal line. That is the Alpha Centauri system, the star system closest to us. One can easily see the incredible distance involved, and also see now incredibly empty interstellar space really is.
I have a question -- sorry I know nada of astronomy/astrophysics: Given that the farthest revolving body, the apparent quasi-planet Pluto, would actually be ~ 7 miles away in Josh's representation of the sun and the other planets with respect to their sizes, how could the gravitational pull of the sun keep these farther planets within their rotations faithfully around it? You alluded to the Solar System as being in empty space, which forgive me contrary to your name I believe is a God-thing, but are there no other forces that could impact these 8-9 planets? But yet, these heavenly bodies stay aligned to the sun, and have done so for a good while.
@@robjohnston366 I can maybe help. As astounding as it seems that the sun's gravitational pull extends that far out, it extends much farther. To put it in context, the sun itself makes up 99.85 percent of the total mass in our solar system. Gravitational pull is complex. Our own moon's gravitational forces, as small as it may seem, causes the tides of our great oceans. There is even a measurable tidal affect from the forces of Jupiter. All planets have a measurable gravitational pull on each other. It is a freakish force, indeed. The massive distances between the planets is very difficult to envision but is even scarier when we look into the night sky and see all those stars. If the sun was the size of a pea, the NEAREST visible star, Alpha Centauri, would be about 128 miles away. And even it has a gravitational pull on the earth.
The force due to gravity between two objects is determined from multiplying the two masses, and dividing that by the square of the distance between them (multiplied by a gravitational constant). This was determined by Isaac Newton in about 1665. The movement of all the bodies in the Solar System conforms with the predictions of this theorem, including the Oort Cloud, which is vastly further away than the planets we are discussing. Pluto averages about 40AU from the Sun (an Astronomical Unit is the average Earth-Sun distance); the Kuiper Belt is a myriad of planetoids, of which Pluto is a deviant one, that goes out to maybe 60AU. The Oort Cloud is a vast number of icy bodies that most comets probably emanate from, and these are found between perhaps 5,000AU to as far as 100,000AU. Unlike everything else we've looked at here, they don't orbit in a flat plane round the Sun, they form a sort of spherical halo or "bubble" all round.
But all of these orbits are explained by Newtonian mechanics, with no need to invoke any other force.
@@wulfgreyhame6857I think it was just trying to explain it using scale reference to help try and visualize the distances and scale,etc. But cool stuff. 👍
The fact that every planet can fit in between the Earth and the Moon just shows how spacious space is
Nice 👍🏻 And I immediately thought that the size and distance scales are way off, but times 100 is mindblowing every time
Quick google search said you can fit a million earth's in the sun. Holy crap that is huge
Scale (dia vs distance) is not right imho
Watch the whole video.
The distance scale in the video is 1/100 of the diameter scale.
Thank you for this very educational video. As I was watching, I noticed the planet scale/distance scale discrepancy, so I really appreciate you addressing and clarifying that. Getting this kind of intuitive feel for the size of the solar system underscores just how vast it is, and how small yet beautiful and life-nurturing our home planet is. Very well done.
It would be interesting to see you put Voyager 1 and 2 on this scale. Where would they be? Thanks!
That was excellent! Thanks so much for putting in all this work
Years ago for a public open house, our astronomy club set up a "scale" of the planets along a road in the woods. The caveat was the size of the planets. To be more accurate, we'd have had to use sewing pins! For me, the most difficult thing to explain to people looking through the telescope at one if the planets, was trying to convey just how far away it was. Great video, my only suggestion would be to do a voice-over. The last part is lost with wind in the mic.
I did think mercury, venus and the earth were way too close to that big pumpkin. I loved the reflection at the end, if only all scientists would contemplate like that.
Yeah, the scale here is way off! Earth is over 100 Sun-diameters distant to the Sun (meaning you could fit over 100 Suns (about 107) between the Sun and the Earth). The Moon is about 30 Earth-diameters distant to the Earth - which in this model would place it closer to Mars or Venus than Earth. Disappointing.
he explained later the used different scales for the size of the planets than the distance between them. the distances are proportional and accurate, and also is the size, however for both to be at the same scale it would be impractical.
@@fylosofer did you even watch the video?
@@EMoritzxD I hadn't watched more than about 3 and a half minutes until I saw replies to my comment. He didn't hint that he was using two different scales till 7:45 minutes in, and seemed to actually want/expect viewers to assume he was using a consistent scale throughout until his reveal near the end. Didn't work for me.
7:40
OMG wht a great comparison size and distances great work
Nice tilt on Saturns rings too
6:00 Uranus is 4x the diameter of the Sun!
😏
6:01 more like
This was the best demonstration I have ever seen! Loved it ❤ Now why could not teachers back in the day threw any of the grades taught classes like this. This truly brings a whole different perspective to everything I was taught. The one little fact you also made about the light traveling at the speed of a caterpillar also a big key in understanding actually how slow really the speed of light really is over vast distances and also helped to really understand larger scale distances like this. Before this becase of the books the sience models the education system uses no one is really being taught this correctly. Its now 40 years later since I graduated and I know have a better understanding, man this could of affected how I went threw like or view things over the years. Thank you and lets get your method any technical approach mandated for how this is taught in schools. Simply perfict, BRAVO TO YOU! 👏👏👏👏🏆
I threw a ball through the hoop.
This is a really nice example! Thank you for making this.
The fact that we can understand and figure this out makes us significant
Pluto, the binary 9th planet in our solar system.
Believe it or not, the Sun (pumpkin) would actually be a little bit bigger. The Sun's diameter is 109 times that of Earth's, so 109 times 1 inch = 109 inches = 9 feet. But that pumpkin looks maybe 7 feet tall or so.
Bottom to stem, the pumpkin is 8.5 feet tall. Couldn't find a 9-foot styrofoam ball! ;)
Way to much in retarded units
Why, if Mercury is I/2 AU from the Sun, would one need to walk "another" two football fields beyond Mercury's revised and corrected placement as stated toward the end of the video (at 9:16)? Wouldn't merely one additional football field be sufficient?
Great question. Mercury is approximately 0.4 AU from the Sun and the Earth is by definition 1.0 AU from the Sun. This makes Earth about 2.5x further from the Sun than Mercury. So, it's a matter of rounding (2.5 up to 3). If I were being more accurate I would have said "another 1.5 football fields". Thanks for the question!
Earth is 1au
I thought I had a problem with how close the earth was to the sun. Then I learned how good your video was.
Well done ❤
at 5:05 i noticed a projectile or a passerby bug when you were at saturn and i would say that was a comet
at multiple speed of light... 🙂
This just puts so much in perspective, makes me appreciate telescopes so much more! 🔭
Finally, someone says my state's name, Rhode Island.I'm very happy right now
Excellent explanation! Thank you. The vastness of the universe is unfathomable. Vast, massive, huge, gigantic doesn't get close to understanding its enormaty.
So where would Proxima Centauri be?
A few miles away at least...
Try 50 THOUSAND miles
@@MineZack2 bro not few miles.. it's light years away so at least Thousands of miles
Probably the other way of earth
How in the hell was Pluto ever found?
idk?
They could see gravitationally disturbing Uranus’ orbit and could conclude that there had to be an extra planet. Then they could then calculate where to look for it with the telescope.
I'm glad I waited till the end, because I was gonna call BS on that scale distance. 😆 So glad he explained it.
very interesting thanks for sharing
1:14 He’s Ending The World
pumpkin apocalypse
The greatest video don't give the views wow
This must be out of scale.
This is ridiculously out of scale. If earth is scaled to 1 inches (about 2.54cm) then the distance from earth to sun would be about 600 meters)
I think there is a different scale on the size and distance
8:30 he explains this
This video makes me appreciate founders of Astronomy finding and identifying the early planets back in 17, 18th century with rudimentary telescopes, pieces of manual mace paper ink and quill with all this empty space!!
Your distances between planets is off.