< Previous | Index | Next >
Image 128 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
This is a view of the local neighbourhood, you can only see a short distance – little more than 380 000 km or about 250 000 miles.
Uh?!
Can you see why I wrote about seeing 380 000 km? Is there something you missed in the photo? Look more closely…
The horizon is, perhaps, 2 km away, you can see buildings and trees out there, they give a good clue to scale. Some of the clouds might be a bit further away. But that little white dot near the centre of the photo is the Moon, the furthest thing you can see in this picture.
The scale of our universe is nothing short of astonishing! The Moon is just our nearest neighbour in terms of the Solar System. All of the other planets are much, much further away than our friendly little Moon. Then consider that the entire Solar System is just a little speck in terms of our galaxy, The Milky Way. And if you travelled the Milky Way from end to end you’d still have seen only a very, very, very insignificant fraction of everything else that’s out there. My goodness this is a big place!
If you want to get a feel for this, try Scale of the Universe. It starts with things of everyday size and you can slide left (smaller) or right (larger).
When: 10th September 2025
Where: Cirencester
See also:
- Scale of the Universe 2 – Cary Huang and others
< Previous | Index | Next >
Useful? Interesting?
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome! 
Share this:
Journeys of Heart and Mind 