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And you thought our sun was big?

howbigistheworld.com — The size of the Earth compared to other planets, then to the sun, then our sun compared to other stars. Unbelievable how big some of these stars are!

Who dugg this? Made popular May 10, 2007

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  • wmnone, on 10/12/2007, -6/+112Great site... Kinda funny to see how small we actually really are..
  • H3LLSL337, on 10/12/2007, -12/+86Kinda puts things in perspective doesn't it?
  • mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -13/+58More like OVER 9000 TIMES BEFORE!!!
  • cryptomystic, on 10/12/2007, -15/+58I've never seen this till now so you can all...SHUT THE HELL UP AND STOP WHINING!!! not everybody spends every waking hour on digg.
  • nubnub, on 10/12/2007, -23/+63OLDER THAN HELL and pretty sure its been on digg before at least once.
  • DeskFlyer, on 10/12/2007, -11/+45"Kinda funny to see how small we actually really are.."

    That's what she said. :(
  • obrysii, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33The largest known star, VY Canis Majoris, would engulf out to Saturn.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Sun_and_VY_Canis_Majoris.png
  • phoggey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33Inaccurate.

    Betelgeuse fit on that tiny model city.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30If aliens are equally proportionate to the size of the planet that they inhabit which is equally proportionate to the size of the star that their planet orbits, then there is the distinct possibility that rather than "little green men", there are aliens flying around out there that are the size of Texas.
  • Cthalupa, on 10/12/2007, -4/+32http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Sun_and_VY_Canis_Majoris.png

    VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star - around 3 times as large as Antares.
  • AnimobileAWS, on 10/12/2007, -5/+30sort of reminds me of this maddox: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=balls_are_huge
  • ummagummas08, on 10/12/2007, -7/+29Marked as inaccurate: Pluto is not a planet.
  • xspinkickx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25@games396

    the fat guy from lost > everything else
  • inkyblue2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+24anyone digging this down gets their nerd badge revoked.
  • dignation, on 10/12/2007, -10/+26according to wikipedia Antares (the largest star on there) has a radius of approximately 227 million kilometers. Thats a surface area of about 647 billion square kilometers!
  • riah, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20They should just make this one a sticky in the science section.
  • neosimulacrum, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Powers of Ten:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6945724039283018435
  • games396, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Sort of reminds me of an old ytmnd http://truesizeofoutworld.ytmnd.com/
  • ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18@battletops:

    ***** al gore. That quote is a paraphrase/ripoff of Carl Sagan's comments on the Pale Blue Dot.
  • jggr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I'M SIGNIFICANT!!!!!

    /screamed the spec of dust.
  • h3ndrix, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15So, what, Pluto is a planet again?
  • swavalier711, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15question; if there is life on other planets, what does that say for religions in general?

    "The only way to get to heaven is through Jesus Christ;" does that screw over the intelligent populations out there?
  • dotspace, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11All those links are lame. This is the big daddy.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbuhjliCKA
  • alphgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yep, their green slimy heathen asses are all gonna burn in hell.
  • blog4charity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8those heavenly bodies make me hungry.

    cheez balls anyone?
  • lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@slomo

    Thanks... now I won't be able to sleep for a week.
  • spudnic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I think if I came back to digg in 5 years time this would still be on the front page every 4 months or so
  • Camphlobactor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think this site was created looong before Pluto's qualifications as a planet came into question. l think it's scary regardless.
  • yarrrjun, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14this site makes me happy. the universe is huge and wonderful!
  • swavalier711, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7eternal damnation for the aliens?

    What do Christians have to say about this?
  • R2Bacca, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8How about doing some research on the topic before you blindly write it off. Pick up any college-level astronomy book. We actually *do* have a pretty good idea of how big there things are...
  • BowieX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Great site... Kinda funny to see how small we actually really are..."

    Imagine how ants feel :(
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8 First time for me to see this..Good Digg.
    Thanks.
  • obrysii, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Sorry for posting more random factoids, but I did some scaling.

    If the sun is the size of a marble (0.5" in diameter), VY Canis Majoris would be ~85 feet in diameter.
  • pongjinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What, no love for Alien Jesus?
  • Grub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6thats still pretty ***** crazy
  • Arturion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Death Star: 120-160 km diameter, depending on who you ask
    Antares: 400,000,000-500,000,000 km diameter.

    And no. The death star could not destroy it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Star
  • Grub, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Interesting. I wonder, does that mean that the largest star represented there entirely engulf our solar system?(out to pluto)
  • coollettuce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@ games396

    If it's old why does it say Pluto is not a planet?
  • tablatronix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I love the method of presentation, but why the horrendous resolutions ?
    Someone needs to re render this.
  • Xill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The universe in quite amazing for a random accident... Seriously, we have so much to learn.
  • mortey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9I'm glad to see Pluto up there. It was never right to leave him out of our great big family!
  • enivid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6But I never thought our sun was big...
  • alphgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not necessarily. Large stars like Rigel can actually be very hot. Stars in the helium fusion phase can burn at hundreds of millions of Kelvin. The colour of the star correlates with its temperature, just like a gas flame. Blue stars are much hotter than our yellow Sun.

    Large, hot stars have very short lives, in the order of tens of millions of years, because they consume their fuel very rapidly. Compare this with the expected lifespan of our Sun on the main sequence of ten billion years.

    Once our sun has consumed all of its hydrogen and commences fusing helium to generate energy it will swell to a size that will engulf the Earth.
  • JamesMH74, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10all we are is dust in the wind
  • Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Not everyone stays on digg all the time. It's the first time I have seen it and that's also the case for everyone that have dugg it."

    I wonder if you're as positive after you've seen this been submitted 4-5 times more. Because that's what some of us here have seen, so hopefully you can at least understand. :-p No, not everyone spends every waking hour on Digg, and neither do I. Not even close -- I come here about once per day, and that's enough.
  • thecoolestguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I love the universe.
  • netdawg, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13thanks for sharing... i guess you think since you've seen it before it has no more value?
  • xtr3m, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"Antares is a class M supergiant star, with a diameter of approximately 700 times solar. I.e., if in place of our sun, its outer surface would extend between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter."
  • Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"according to wikipedia Antares (the largest star on there) has a radius of approximately 227 million kilometers. Thats a surface area of about 647 billion square kilometers!"

    And Antares has 15.5 solar masses, while Eta Carinae is of an estimated 100-150 solar masses.
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