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See the original image at img225.imageshack.us —

Q: How big is the paddle Sol uses to spank Earth? A: HUGE!

img225.imageshack.us — A closeup of an erupting prominence on the Sun taken on 1 July 2002 in 304 Angstrom ( Å) emission, with a photo of Earth inset at the approximate scale of the image. The diameter of the Earth is about 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers).

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  • vroom101, on 10/12/2008, -1/+17Photo and most of the description via http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/top10/top10 ... (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/top10/top10_detail_molten304_earth.html)

    Diameter of the Earth in miles taken from "World Book at NASA: Earth" at http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/earth_worldbook.html
  • vroom101, on 10/12/2008, -1/+9See also http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/eit9 ... (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/eit99promclose.html)
  • JustinHopewell, on 10/12/2008, -7/+11I heard once that the diameter of the sun was about as wide as eight Earths side-by-side. This is definitely a different scale. Not that I'm going to argue with NASA. I probably got that information from a placemat at Shoney's when I was 12.
    • DirtPile, on 10/12/2008, -1/+23It's about 110 times the diameter of the sun. Close, though.
    • HayString, on 10/12/2008, -15/+9Instead of saying "I once heard ..., but it was probably wrong..." Why not actually take a little time and try to look it up so that you'll know for sure and won't have to worry about going around spewing misinformation?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun -> look under Physical Characteristics in the bar on the right.


      Knowledge is power.
      • JustinHopewell, on 10/13/2008, -3/+16I don't know, I guess I thought the "Shoney's Placemat" part of my comment would have kept anyone from confusing that as misinformation. Thank you for your condescending lesson in how to look up information on Wikipedia!
      • alphgeek, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Don't worry mate, we were all new once.
      • poopsmcgee, on 10/13/2008, -5/+6You go to wikipedia for your information then claim knowledge is power? You sir, are an idiot.
      • Joomal, on 10/13/2008, -2/+6You just won the douchebag of the day award. Congrats.
      • chizzlechest420, on 10/13/2008, -1/+3hey *****....go home
      • elementop, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Dugg for posting the correct information. Buried for being a jerk about it.
      • JustinHopewell, on 10/15/2008, -0/+1Holy jesus, I'm being defended on Digg... what's this world coming to? : )
    • HHermes, on 10/13/2008, -0/+0http://users.aol.com/bobalien99/sizes.gif

      Way off!
    • latinjones, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Saturn is about 8 earths I think.
    • Mujokan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Even Aristarchus did better than that in 300BC.
    • sindex, on 10/13/2008, -1/+7I don't know where you heard that. If you know only one song about the Sun it should be this one, and you'll never make that mistake again:

      Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)

      The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
      A gigantic nuclear furnace
      where hydrogen is built into helium
      at a temperature of millions of degrees

      Yo ho it's hot
      The Sun is not
      a place where we could live
      but here on earth there'd be no life without the light it gives

      We need its light
      We need its heat
      We need its energy

      Without the sun
      Without a doubt
      There'd be no you and me

      The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
      A gigantic nuclear furnace
      where hydrogen is built into helium
      at a temperature of millions of degrees

      The sun is hot -
      It is so hot that everything on it is a gas
      Iron
      Copper
      Aluminum
      and many others

      The sun is large-
      If the sun were hollow a million earths could fit inside
      and yet the sun is only a middle-sized star

      The sun is far away-
      About 93 million miles away!
      and that's why it looks so small

      And even when it's out of sight
      the sun shines night and day

      The sun gives heat
      The sun gives light
      The sunlight that we see
      The sunlight comes from our own sun's atomic energy

      Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine
      The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of
      Hydrogen
      Carbon
      Nitrogen
      and Helium

      The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
      A gigantic nuclear furnace
      where hydrogen is built into helium
      at a temperature of millions of degrees
      • LomasLou, on 11/06/2008, -0/+0Wasn't Frank Zappa the first to record this song?
    • jeltringham, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Don't knock Shoney's placemats - the library at Alexandria chiefly used Shoney's placemats to document all the knowledge of the ancient world, such as the fact that hummingbirds are the only brids who fly backwards and that ants carry 50x their body weight, and also that you can see three states from the Statue of Liberty.
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2You can fit about 3 earths inside Jupiter's great red spot, and the sun is considerably larger than Jupiter.
    • phantom_mullet, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Meh, I dugg you up for Shoney's.
    • LomasLou, on 11/06/2008, -0/+0So how often do the placemats at Shoneys speak to you?
  • VIJoe, on 10/12/2008, -11/+32can't believe the sun is that close - let alone that big!
    • IglooBurner, on 10/13/2008, -3/+23this is surely a joke right?
    • HxChris91, on 10/13/2008, -0/+19He just forgot his sarcasm tags, lay off a bit!

      /s
    • Myztry, on 10/13/2008, -3/+5And to think to it orbits the center of the Universe - God's Earth...
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2I'm going to need better sunglasses...
      And some SPF 10,000,000 sunscreen.
    • alappat1, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1somebody give this man a facepalm!
    • bicycleman, on 10/13/2008, -1/+1Yeah, we ants don't stand a chance. Maybe we should stop fighting each other and come together already under world peace.
    • nyamdagni, on 10/13/2008, -1/+0haha... VIJoe cant be serious
  • vroom101, on 10/12/2008, -0/+6#1. Twisting prominence (lower left): http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/eit0 ... (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/images/eit001.html)

    #2. Big, bright, expansive prominence: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/SolarCorona ... (sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/SolarCorona/combo001.html)

    #3. Video -- "Olympics On Sol: Prominence's Mega-Cool Über-Rare Somersault" http://digg.com/space/Olympics_On_Sol_Prominence_s ...
    • tbredofsin, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1I dugg you up so hard for those first couple pictures.
  • Shiftgood, on 10/12/2008, -14/+13pffft... photoshopped. the light sources are way off.. and look at the pixels. hack job if you ask me.
  • wontstoptalking, on 10/13/2008, -4/+12I liked the part when the sun spanked the earth.
  • LyndaNeuman, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4One word....WOW
  • CarStan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+36Who has been a naughty little planet?
  • slapded, on 10/13/2008, -1/+7The little picture of earth in that scale makes the sun look very scary
  • Robotsscareme, on 10/13/2008, -2/+16The big yellow one is the sun
  • NinjaGod, on 10/13/2008, -0/+22Spank me harder.
  • yudhi0, on 10/13/2008, -4/+0just say 1 word "Awesome"
  • ReverendSin, on 10/13/2008, -0/+15That's hot.
  • CJPixels, on 10/13/2008, -1/+1Puts our planet in perspective.
  • dankuckuck, on 10/13/2008, -0/+16Since when do people in normal conversation refer to the Sun as "Sol"?
    • ColorBlind, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4since it started to spank us! mwhahahaha..cough...cough...too soon?
    • Myztry, on 10/13/2008, -0/+9What the hell has normal conversation to do with anything?
      I certainly don't come to Digg, or the Internet as a whole for normal conversation...
    • Mujokan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1When in Rome...
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 10/13/2008, -1/+3You mean you don't refer to this planet as Sol 3 like everyone else?
    • LocalDocal, on 10/13/2008, -0/+0Well, I myself occasionally refer to the solar system as the 'Sol System' (meaning the planetary system centered around our star, Sol). It makes sense to me and it sounders better anyway.
    • Kajarago, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Spanish speakers call the sun 'Sol.'
    • TheHim, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2"Sol" is the astronomical name (yes, that includes english astronomers) of our Sun. This might be because Sun defines the type of object. So there's Sirius, Vega, Pollox etc. and then there's Sol, our sun.
    • LomasLou, on 11/06/2008, -0/+0I have an Uncle Sol.
  • tbredofsin, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Pretty scary when viewed that way, but remember that were this to the distance-scale of our solar system, Earth would not only be off your computer screen, it would probably be outside the building in which your computer screen resides.
    • Knowltey, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1That's a big JPEG, that's be at least 9000 pixels wide.
    • elementop, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Quote: were this to the distance-scale of our solar system, Earth would not only be off your computer screen, it would probably be outside the building in which your computer screen resides.

      Yep. A quick trip to Wikipedia shows that the mean radius of the earth is 6.378x10^6 m. By averaging the aphelion and perihelion, I came up with the average distance from the sun is 2.992x10^11 m (that's probably not the right way to calculate the average distance, but it's close enough for now). So, that means on average, the distance from the sun to the earth is (2.992x10^11 / (6.378x10^6 x 2)) or 23,455 times the diameter of the earth.

      So take that picture of the earth next to the sun, and move it 23,455 times its diameter to get the actual distance from the sun.

      Space is big. I mean really, really, mind-bogglingly big (or something like that, with apologies to Douglas Adams).
  • F16Freek, on 10/13/2008, -0/+0I knew that the sun is quite a bit larger than earth is, but this really puts it in perspective. This picture makes me feel tiny... like the first time I saw the Hubble deep field picture.
    • dyreschlock, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1meh. ants and microbes are smaller.
  • BenKenobi88, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4http://www.sunwisdom.com/Sunscale.jpg
  • smartass007, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1who's your daddy?
  • irobeth, on 10/13/2008, -1/+1This looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few in my time.
    • spacewhale, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Ya, that little blue planet in the picture looks out of place...

      /s
  • ryan99fl, on 10/13/2008, -8/+0.. but at what fps will it run Crysis?
  • AManWithNoName, on 10/13/2008, -2/+2The sun is large? NO WAY! I would not know that if not for this post! This is such an important submission! We must all know that THE SUN IS HUGE before it's too late!

    Seriously, admit it...Those who dugg this submission are elementary students, right?
    • LocalDocal, on 10/13/2008, -0/+0Hey college student, the submission is not about the sun being large. We all know that. The submission is about how large just one of the sun's solar flare is compared to Earth. I guess the title wasn't a big enough clue, huh?
  • 1807, on 10/13/2008, -0/+10It's OVER 9,000!
  • bjs3171, on 10/13/2008, -0/+7Jesus. No wonder the globe is warming up so fast.
  • 7come11, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5If the planet we lived on were as big as the sun, do you think we would have discovered our whole world yet i wonder... happy Columbus day!
  • briansearles, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Don't touch the hot lava!
  • wrek, on 10/13/2008, -5/+1Fck you, two of my friends died trying to spank the Earth.
  • CaLeDee, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1David vs. Gol... oh forget it, we don't stand a chance.
  • Cabose, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2Makes you feel real small and insignificant. God damn I love the universe!
  • Metasquares, on 10/13/2008, -0/+9"This image has been scaled down to fit your computer screen."

    I would hope.
  • trevordj, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4Did anyone else think about Star Trek: Voyager after looking at this picture?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXCP6lJkDZU
  • Darkaged, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2It surprised me how small the sun actually is.
  • Br3ach, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Makes you feel kinda small, doesnt it. You know what I mean

    In reality the scary part is that there are stars that are thousands of times bigger than the Sun

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNEV9EW06g
  • fattehboi, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1OUCH.
  • whalt, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1This is why I'm hot.
  • vroom101, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2For the submitted photo, please ignore (forget) the reference to "Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)".

    #4. Coronal Mass Ejections
    http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/CMEs.shtml
    #5. Chromospheric Features: Prominences
    http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature2.shtml#P ... (solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature2.shtml#Prominences)

    #6. Photo: Coronal Mass Ejection
    http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000309.html
    #7. Photo: Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence
    http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000403.html
  • Kenzan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3So....basically if the Sun farts, we're all toast.
    • bicycleman, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Actually, that's my job. "If I fart..."
  • gobbstopp, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1the sun is hung like a horse
  • Nighthawke, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Be glad for our Van Allen Belts and magnetic fields. Without those we'd be microwaved.
  • bugaloobob, on 10/13/2008, -2/+1Misleading. The Earth is not that close to the sun and couldn't paddle the Earth. Interesting for the scale but misleading anyway.
  • vroom101, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1#8. More information about the photo from NASA's article "Molten Curl - July 02, 2002" at http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020702solarpro ... (www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020702solarprom.html):

    A beautiful loop of magnetic energy large enough to encompass 40 Earth's, was spotted by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on Monday [July 1, 2002]. Blasting off the Sun around 9:19 am EDT, the loop, or 'prominence' traps hot gas and typically reaches 107,000 degrees F - considerably cooler than the Sun's atmosphere of 1 million degrees. Scientists said that if the eruption of the prominence had been aimed toward Earth, it could have disturbed our magnetosphere resulting in auroras and other space weather activity. One of the more interesting aspects of this sited prominence, is that we are edging toward a more tame period of the Sun's 11-year cycle. With 'solar max' occurring between 1999 and 2001, sunspot counts and solar activity have been on the decline.
  • titaniumten, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2***** with earth - whatever.

    ***** with the sun......*****.
  • OneRingShort, on 10/13/2008, -1/+3Buried as inaccurate. The world is flat.
  • Wittyfish, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2That's a lot of fire.
  • bicycleman, on 10/13/2008, -2/+1one volcano can emit 100 times more industrial pollution in one day. There are many of them on earth doing that right now. Man can not affect global warming. Will you please come off the industrial marketing bandwagon already? Just stop tossing and using plastic irresponsibly and we should do better.
  • TheHim, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I34FNr_peUk
  • jerryudigg, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2I agree with AL Gore it is your car that is changing the planet.
  • captdonno, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2so what you're saying is all we are is the sun's marble...okay.
  • danc4498, on 10/14/2008, -0/+2"This image has been scaled down to fit your computer screen." O rly?
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