How BIG Is Our Solar System? | Earth Science

The universe is so big that to me it's actually impossible to comprehend. No matter how many universe comparison videos I watch, or no matter how many times I look at the stars and planets through my telescope, I just can't comprehend these things. Anyone agree?

According to that scale, the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 40,303 kilometres away. There is barely enough room on the circumference of the earth (From the equator) that can fit on this scale. It would literally wrap around the Earth!

It's amazing that the sun can still have a gravitational effect at those distances.

I'm a tired science teacher... and that's exactly how I pronounce Uranus. That made me laugh.

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

This guy included Pluto, I like this guy.

Pluto's heart makes it look cuddly

Reminds me of a problem I have when imagining a spaceship I dreamed up. It's 10km by 3km by 1.5km (roughly). Whenever I imagine it next to something, it's always way, way too small. I have to really stretch my imagination to make it the correct size. It feels like pulling on a rubber band, my mind doesn't want to go that big, and resists. Human minds just seem to have a limit to how big we can perceive things. So, the solar system, being positively gargantuan in size compared to our sense of scale, just has a hard time being comprehended.

At 2:46 you said 150 million miles when it should be 150 million km

Don't use London buses as a form of measurement... Im Australian. I don't know how long a London bus is... use a kangaroo tail instead 😂 EDIT 2021: Still have not been to London due to Corona … still not sure of the solar system’s size

Which is why in my fiction I have battles take place over distances of light minutes and light seconds rather than having everyone drive right up next to each other (eyeball range) like most fiction does. Also makes it insanely complex, keeping track of weapons fire and maneuvering over such distances of time and space, which I love.

It's amazing the reach of the Sun's gravitational pull.

Great video! Really puts things into perspective!

Nobody: Micheal Jackson: 5:53

Oort Cloud feels left out.

I am in love with this guy, even when he confused miles with kilometers...

We needed this demonstration when I was in school in the seventies. Those models you portrayed in the beginning of the video were so inaccurate that they should have been outlawed. I recently watched another video that included the closest stars. Absolutely astonishing. Thanks for the lesson.

My home town, Melbourne, has a scale model of the solar system arranged along the beaches of Port Phillip Bay. It slightly larger than the one mocked up for the video. I have walked it once. It really does give a sense of just how much nothing there is out there.

The distance between the moon and Earth never portrait how far it is in my opinion. The one triviafact that helps me understand that it's wicked far away is the fact that all planets can fit between the Earth and the moon. (I doublechecked and it only works with the moon being further away than its average distance to Earth, but it still within the max distance. I also excluded Saturns rings and Pluto)

The crazy thing is that the distance between the sun and Farfarout, currently known as the most far-out object in the solar system, is about 14,200 times the sun's diameter. I mean, it's crazy how far the sun's magnetic field (or any other cosmic object like black holes, etc.) can reach out. Mind-blowing.