Galactic Size Comparison



    by warg_14

    40 Comments

    1. Here’s a fun example of the size of the Milky Way relative to our understanding.

      Let’s scale down our solar system to the size of a golf ball, using Neptune’s orbit to define the outer planetary rim. That means that our Sun is the size of a red blood cell, and the distance between Earth and the Sun is about 0.7mm (think mechanical pencil lead).

      At this solar-system-as-a-golf-ball scaling, the nearest solar system, (Proxima Centauri) is about 191m, or just about two football fields away. And the size of the entire Milky Way galaxy given the 100,000ly diameter estimate? Take a guess.>! The Milky Way at this scale is the size of the continental U.S.!<

      Light moves incredibly slow as at this scale, it takes light ONE YEAR to move about half a football field.

    2. Puts things in perspective doesn’t it?
      Earth is quite insignificant and humans even less

    3. Trillions of stars….. Yes, “we are alone in the universe”

      Just earth, nothing more….

    4. Think of how much life there probably is in our milky galaxy alone, and then how much in the universe. And we won’t probably be able to meet anyone

    5. These things always show the bigger boys, give us a bit of an ego boost man, show us the minnows, let us know we’re not the quite the most insignificant thing out there!

    6. I’m just gonna assume that the black hole at the center of each respective galaxy has to scale accordingly.

    7. This makes me think…. How truly massive do the black holes at the center of those bigger galaxy’s be, to keep that entire galaxy around it?

    8. Trips-Over-Tail on

      These work a lot better when you can actually see the compared entities next to each other.

    9. Tall-Wealth9549 on

      I don’t think I could comprehend those numbers and that true meaning of trillion+. It’s hard to fathom more than just understanding it a lot.

    10. Is that the biggest known galaxy at the end? If so, to think that’s the best name we can come up with…

    11. Every time i see a scale chart like this I usually expect it to end with the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

    12. Maybe I’m just weird but I have a hard time believing any of this without knowing how they have come to this conclusion.

    13. *Milky Way*… *Andromeda*… “**Hoag’s Object**”…. can we get a rename for this one?

    14. Fake video! There’s no air on space, how can someone play such a loud music up there??

    15. loneranger2380 on

      Who counted all the stars? How do they know how big each is when they cant find the guy who robbed the 7/11 last week because the ‘picture was too grainy’

    16. My mind really cannot comprehend how an object can be almost 6 million light years in diameter in a universe where the fastest possible speed is the light speed. So if light takes 6 million(!) years from one end to another, how does the gravity hold the whole galaxy together? I realize the stars cumulative gravity fields combine but still, it is mind boggling how the gravity can permeate through such a huge galaxy.

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