"View the solar system to scale This website aims to put our solar system in to perspective. Everything on this site is to scale, including the planet sizes and distances between them. All sizes are calculated based on the Sun having a 650 pixel radius. Try scrolling down to find a planet in the vastness of space within our solar system. Or, to discover the planets more easily, use the navigation bar on the left to jump to a planet of your choice." #linkbait #geeky #science #astronomy #scale #pub

Flash app that shows a scale from tiny particles/cells/atoms, etc all the way to the relative size of the far away planets, stars, galaxies, to whole universe. #breathtaking #amazing #personal #perspective #science #astronomy #pub

"Planets of the Solar System to scale. Jupiter and Saturn (top row), Uranus and Neptune (top middle), Earth and Venus (bottom middle), Mars and Mercury. If the Sun-Neptune distance were scaled to the length of a football or soccer field of about 100 meters long, the Sun would be less than 3 cm in diameter (about two-thirds that of a golf ball), the gas giants would all be less than 3 mm across (smaller than a BB pellet) and Earth's diameter and the other terrestrial planets would be less than 0.3 mm (smaller than a flea)." #science #astronomy #solar_systems #pub

Crazy! Only 3 verified Mega-Earths. I'm not sure if terrestrial here can also mean ice planets, which are mostly useless to us, right?I think it does. #astronomy #interesting #science #%wiki #pub

"For example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the light from the parent star causes a glare that washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the extrasolar planets reported as of April 2014 have been observed directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star." -- two interesting stats - Less than 5% have been discovered directly. It seems like more were discovered in 2014 than all previous years combined. #astronomy #interesting #science #%wiki #stars #solar_systems #pub

"In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.[1][2] The bounds of the CHZ are based on Earth's position in the Solar System and the amount of radiant energy it receives from the Sun. Due to the importance of liquid water to Earth's biosphere, the nature of the CHZ and the objects within it may be instrumental in determining the scope and distribution of Earth-like extraterrestrial life and intelligence." -- Haven't read through it all yet, but wondering what Earth's habital zones are. For humans and then for any visible species and then any life at all. So 3 different scenarios. Someone said habitable zone for for Earth is within 5% of its current average distance. Not even sure if that means humans or any life at all. With no info at all, I would think Earth could be as close as Mars and as far as Venus (at their farthest and closest) for some life like bacteria to survive. But maybe I'm totally wrong and you really need to be in the right spot. Or maybe we don't know. #astronomy #interesting #science #%wiki #pub

I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good. #interesting #deep_thinking #science #astronomy #space #pub