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The Universe: A Matter of Perspective

i51.photobucket.com — An illustration which shows how small our planet Earth is in the larger scope of things. If a human could walk on the surface of Canis Majoris, the largest known star in the universe – he/she would have to walk for 650,000 years to circle the star, compared with 2 years 11 months to complete the same task on the Earth.

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  • SkinnerBox, on 02/10/2008, -4/+54That was disorienting.
    • ElbertF, on 02/10/2008, -2/+10I always thought I was big. I'm 2 meters tall. :(
    • tsunamisteve, on 02/10/2008, -6/+2From the randomness of where pictures popped up or because you thought everything revolved around Earth?
      /sarcasm
    • KingBabi, on 02/10/2008, -1/+34It's a .gif. Classy.
      • gllopc, on 02/10/2008, -1/+12You repeated yourself. Nice.
        • Matri, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Whoah, déjà vu!
        • mikesbaker, on 02/11/2008, -0/+7What did you just say?
          Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
          What did you see?
          What happened?
          A comment got posted, and then another that looked just like it.
          How much like it? Was it the same comment?
          It might have been. I'm not sure.
          What is it?
          A déjà vu is usually a glitch in digg. IIt happens when you eat too much noob sauce
    • KingBabi, on 02/10/2008, -19/+1It's a gif. Classy.
      • gllopc, on 02/10/2008, -2/+13You repeated yourself. Nice.
        • Matri, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Whoah, déjà vu!
        • mikesbaker, on 02/11/2008, -1/+4What did you just say?
          Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
          What did you see?
          What happened?
          A comment got posted, and then another that looked just like it.
          How much like it? Was it the same comment?
          It might have been. I'm not sure.
          What is it?
          A déjà vu is usually a glitch in digg. IIt happens when you eat too much noob sauce
    • ch33sehead, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7It would have been even more disorienting if they scaled a star w/ a galaxy.
    • antiorblkflag9, on 02/10/2008, -1/+9Where was Dantooine?
      • FlyingSpaghetti, on 02/11/2008, -0/+6Dantooine is too remote to make an effective presentation.
      • blackfox026, on 02/11/2008, -0/+8in a galaxy far, far away...
    • bootle, on 02/10/2008, -9/+3Buried as inaccurate. Here's a REAL picture of betelgeuse:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Betelgeuse_star ...
    • walkea1, on 02/11/2008, -0/+7Wasn't it D. Adams who wrote that if anyone could ever really have true perspective of their place in the universe they would cease to exist because they mattered so little? I mean, in the context of the hitchhikers trilogy.
    • ICSU, on 02/11/2008, -0/+7Matter of perspective? See Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
  • ezzonguard, on 02/10/2008, -2/+171wait for it people, no ADHD, very impressive
  • Kellibu, on 02/10/2008, -18/+2That was cool, but where was my picture?
  • Himself, on 02/10/2008, -0/+18video: http://digg.com/educational/the_scale_of_some_stuf ...
  • moletimer, on 02/10/2008, -5/+74Wow. That really makes you think about how insignificant we all are in comparison to how huge the universe is.
    • Picaroon, on 02/10/2008, -2/+74It's not how big you are; it's what you do with it.
      • makkaveli19, on 02/10/2008, -0/+27i kinda wish that was what she said... :(
      • unorginalityftw, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1We haven't been doing that great of a job anyway, so we fail on both accounts.
    • ElbertF, on 02/10/2008, -1/+133You can do the same thing with cells, molecules and atoms and feel really big!

      ..My theory is that we're exactly average. Heck, if infinity goes both ways everything is average. Hmm..
      • JayBabs, on 02/10/2008, -1/+19I salute you sir.
      • ch33sehead, on 02/10/2008, -17/+2Average is a man-made concept. In your sense, it would be more of a definition than a theory since it's more subjective/relative than absolute.
        • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+6except "if infinity goes both ways". then it is absolute. and he's right. and you're wrong.
      • SuperWinner, on 02/10/2008, -1/+17Thank you Deepy Deepington.
      • DarkSamus, on 02/11/2008, -2/+2helmet asplodes!@#
    • Lunarbunny, on 02/10/2008, -1/+14http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot
      • jlharrity, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

        Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

        - Carl Sagan
        • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1"there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world"
          that, and one's first heavy dose of LSD. both are very perspective altering events.
    • PenguinShogun, on 02/10/2008, -0/+5It Reminds me of that device in Hitchhiker's guide that made people know how insignificant they are and drove them insane
    • futurepope, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Wow. What a profound revelation.
    • crombat, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Speak for yourself.
    • BriscoeJr, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0For me it does the opposite. I didn't see a lot of life out there.
      • Sucka27, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0Let me get this right...because you didn't see life in an animated .gif of other stars you assume there is no life? Let's put it this way, of the infinite number of other planets or inhabitable rocks in the universe, there is a pretty good possibility that life (bacteria most likely) exists on one of the other planets or moons IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. So do the math.
    • Hoogs, on 02/11/2008, -1/+1I like to think we're still significant.
    • mattsegal, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1hmm I am glad you can draw so much meaning from this
  • bowe, on 02/10/2008, -3/+54http://digg.com/general_sciences/Charles_Ray_Eames ...
    I submitted this a while ago but it didn't get any diggs. Maybe people viewing this article will be interested. It's a short film called Powers of 10 by Charles and Ray Eames (designers of the Eames chair). The video goes from the subatomic level, all the out to the outer reaches of the universe. Each 10 seconds represents a power of 10.
    • pirloui, on 02/10/2008, -0/+8I would also recommend this video. It's a very clear and "intuitive" way of illustrating the scale of things.
      I showed it to my little brother and his reaction was "why didn't they (school) just show that?"
    • sunnyd, on 02/10/2008, -0/+8I liked this video much better than the parent story, gives a much more definitive realization of how insignificant we are, and how complex insignificance really is
    • KingBabi, on 02/10/2008, -0/+3It's one of the best short films of all time. Dugg despite the plug.
    • SuperWinner, on 02/10/2008, -1/+3Size is a relative concept, it has no intrinsic value.
    • Cloud7654, on 02/11/2008, -0/+5I'd like to see a modern day remake of that short film, just to see how much we've learned in the past 30 years.
    • edtruckell, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3ive been looking for that film since i saw it about 14 years ago. couldnt remember what the name was. thanks.
    • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3thanks. i'd been to the website (www.powersof10.com) but hadn't seen the video that it was based on till now. this film really puts things in perspective.
    • MaximusD, on 02/11/2008, -1/+1Ray Charles has a song called power of ten?
  • pentium42006, on 02/10/2008, -3/+12Something like this was on Digg earlier.
    http://digg.com/general_sciences/Nano_this_is_real ...
  • dasutin, on 02/10/2008, -0/+45Knowing that VY Canis Majoris is the largest known star ever recorded... its only 5,000 light years from Earth.
    • Frnnkdlxx, on 02/10/2008, -3/+8And here I was, thinking that Blue Giants were supposedly the largest stars that could exist. Just goes to show, nothing is so simple, nothing can be generalized, there is more where that came from, so on and so forth.

      Imagine what we haven't seen yet. What if there were a multitude of universes and our universe was actually a spherical object, which , if broken out of, one could see the other universes as a seeming swarm of subatomic particles..... so on and so forth. Just imagining the pure scale of what is, and what is to be seen is pleasantly humbling.
      • DarkSamus, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1well, they aren't the biggest, but certainly the best
        • Frnnkdlxx, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2the best? They're basically "cooled" super stars burning off helium, if i'm not mistaken. I don't think they qualify as the best. The best goes to the star that can become a black hole... Much respect is due the creature that can rip holes in space time and open a portal in between a seemingly flat planed space into another dimension which is impossible to explore because of it's enormous pressure and our invariant technology that will not even come close to comprehending it for hundreds of years because it would require faster or better than light reading instruments. *INHALES* WHOO!
        • Amadeus2490, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2::takes hit of weed::

          . . .ddddddddduuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuddde. . .
        • peedeeramone, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0pass itt!!!
    • ligyron, on 02/10/2008, -1/+15And, our Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across. So there are probably much larger stars in our galaxy alone. Also, that's just the Milky Way--which is just one of billions of galaxies in the observable Universe
      • Scaryclouds, on 02/10/2008, -0/+1And to think there lies a black hole at the center of our Galaxy some hundreds of billions to trillions times more massive than our Sun. Even the massive VY Canis Majoris wouldn't would a candle to that.
      • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -0/+1Billions of galaxies that we have the technology to see. There could be a Dectillion other galaxies out there that we do not yet have the technology to survey.
      • TonyLocNE, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1I like how you pointed out to the "observable" universe
      • adnams, on 02/11/2008, -2/+4Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
        And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
        That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
        A sun that is the source of all our power.
        The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
        Are moving at a million miles a day
        In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
        Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

        Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
        It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
        It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
        But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
        We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
        We go 'round every two hundred million years,
        And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
        In this amazing and expanding universe.

        The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
        In all of the directions it can whizz
        As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
        Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
        So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
        How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
        And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
        'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

    • NYC83, on 02/10/2008, -1/+2http://www.digg.com/space/VY_Canis_Majoris_The_Lar ...
    • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -4/+5The universe, an infinite paradox.
      • Amadeus2490, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2It's neither infinite nor paradoxical.
        • tgc1, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3Prove it.
          • Amadeus2490, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1It has to stop sometime. It seems infinitely massive to us but as this animated GIF showed us, we have a very very small perspective. I wouldn't be surprised if we're a cell in a being's body, or in a petri dish somewhere. Therefore, it's logical to assume that it has to end SOMEWHERE, because if it never ended that would be. . .impossible and weird. The universe can't be a paradox because it if contradicted itself, it would violate its own laws and it would cease to exist.

            In fact, I really wish someone WOULD prove it, either way; I don't mind being wrong about things like this at all.
          • tgc1, on 02/12/2008, -0/+0I think i'll stick to my theory of infinity in lieu of evidence.
        • TonyLocNE, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1how do you figure its not? I don't understand
      • dturnbull, on 02/11/2008, -1/+2all your universe are belong to us
    • Chordinator, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Anyone know then if VY Canis Majoris is visible from earth with the naked eye? Would be cool if its size was visibly comparable to say, Mars, which is much closer than even a single light-year away.
  • ThinkBox, on 02/10/2008, -38/+7I have seen these things on digg... well... just about... yeah... this would seriously be in the 20s now.

    freaking buried.
    • burnttoast11, on 02/10/2008, -4/+17It's my first time, so dugg
      • Kamill85, on 02/11/2008, -2/+1If consider some old story a NEWS then use the ***** search button, this is old as *****, been posted just about obamapaulzillion times, digg supposed to be a news site, this is _not_ a news, see? kthxbai
    • Namaha, on 02/10/2008, -2/+2I've seen something similar, but it only went to Antares.

      Dugg and a half.
  • OHaloThar, on 02/10/2008, -44/+4Dr. George Bush for '08!
    • SpookyPig, on 02/10/2008, -0/+16You trolls don't even try anymore
      • OHaloThar, on 02/10/2008, -14/+1Im not trolling, im srs.
      • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2i dont even have any idea what he's trying to say.
  • marrstu, on 02/10/2008, -2/+38Dugg because I was expecting that video that has been posted several times, which I believe stops at Beetlejuice .
  • T101, on 02/10/2008, -53/+4not that amazing, how did that make the top of the front page? Are there a lot of High School dropouts on digg?
    • CaptainM4d, on 02/10/2008, -3/+27***** you. This is pretty damn cool.
    • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -1/+3in answer to your question - yes. they all live at home, smoke pot, own mac's, and are voting for ron paul.
  • tackle, on 02/10/2008, -24/+6Oh god! Not again!
  • ianmurrays, on 02/10/2008, -26/+3Old....
    • brutusx, on 02/10/2008, -1/+16"Old...." comment is old
      • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -2/+1your face is old.

        DON'T bury me, i know that saying "your face is XXXX" is the absolute lamest (and oldest) insult in the book. i'm using it here out of irony, dryly mocking this whole situation. it's humor. laugh.
        • joshdare, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Kinda loses its impact when you have to explain you're using irony tho, eh?! ;)
          • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1yes. but the problem isn't on my end.
  • marktheshark, on 02/10/2008, -2/+150It's always nice to be shown how insignificant you are.
    • Frnnkdlxx, on 02/10/2008, -1/+21Don't make fun of my sun!!!!
    • swiftekho, on 02/11/2008, -6/+3The Bible got some explaining to do...
      Nah, it's actually really ***** cool
    • stackered, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Especially since I've seen this on Digg about 100 other times.
  • BigFuzzyArchon, on 02/10/2008, -4/+15we are nothing
  • loca07, on 02/10/2008, -1/+8wow, amazing to say the least. Really now I feel so small.
  • Pradko, on 02/10/2008, -2/+141dont ***** with VY canis majoris kids
    • brutusx, on 02/10/2008, -0/+14Just the gravity on that biatch would turn us back into that primordial ooze *****! I would love to see something evolve on that one.
      • Frnnkdlxx, on 02/10/2008, -10/+3Imagine the size and strenght of the planets that would have to orbit it. They would literally have to be ENOOOORRMOUS. Liek, the planet eater guy from the silver surfer comics. amazing. Imagine a swarm of minicruiser ships, that were the size of our moon. lol. they're here to vacation and accidentally destroyed our gravitational equilibrium. LOOL.
        • fliguy84, on 02/10/2008, -6/+05!
        • MacSuxWindozSux, on 02/11/2008, -1/+1Galactus?
          You didn't read the comics you only watched the movie.
    • KingGorilla, on 02/10/2008, -0/+4I don't think I can
    • SuperWinner, on 02/10/2008, -0/+20Its 2 billion times the size of our sun.
      two. billion.
    • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -1/+1Makes our entire solar system look like a popsicle stand.
  • megaton, on 02/10/2008, -4/+14Holy. *****.
  • dan222555, on 02/10/2008, -18/+4Ahhh the scale of the universe...a staple of digg.com. Every couple of weeks since I've joined someone has posted something like this...
    • MasterGrief, on 02/10/2008, -1/+18People like this sort of thing. Makes them think.

      I certainly don't have a problem with it.
      • birdly, on 02/10/2008, -0/+8At least it isn't as common as people commenting on a story being submitted more than once.
    • dan222555, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Then maybe we should just have a permanent story on the front page about the scale of the universe. Then we call all oooo and ahhh and make the same played out comments people make every time they see this thing for the rest of eternity.
  • bigbill780, on 02/10/2008, -4/+13Size matters
  • TheBirdinator, on 02/10/2008, -3/+9http://sizeofworldse.ytmnd.com/
  • smurf22, on 02/10/2008, -4/+23I can only imagine the gravity on those planets.
    • pirloui, on 02/10/2008, -0/+5Indeed... I wonder if a piece of "metal" would just flatten to the ground like a pancake. (if they weren't fireballs)
      • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -0/+4i think you have the makings of a doctoral thesis there.
      • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -2/+0Probably just turn into a liquid or gas.
    • Uranium118, on 02/10/2008, -1/+12On Jupiter, you would weight 2.5 times as much a on Earth, it would be difficult to walk normally. On the Sun, you would be unconscious because the heart can't pump the blood up to the head with so much gravity. On the largest known star, you would probably be crushed to death.
      • KingGorilla, on 02/10/2008, -1/+7what if you lay flat on the sun. Could your heart pump blood to your head then?
        • vpshockwave, on 02/10/2008, -2/+10Does the sun actually have hard surface? I've always wondered that. I mean, it's just a giant reaction nuclear reaction right? Makes me think.
          • KingGorilla, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
        • billski, on 02/10/2008, -1/+14what if you constantly did cartwheels? would that work?
        • ghamal, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7I you lay flat on the sun you would be barbecue.
        • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -1/+5You couldn't get to within few hundred thousand miles of the surface without being vaporized instantly.
    • xMedic, on 02/10/2008, -0/+4I can't.
    • xombiefarts, on 02/10/2008, -0/+8not planets...stars people!!
  • mowe, on 02/10/2008, -14/+7lol.....uranus
    • billski, on 02/10/2008, -2/+4they named it for the lulz
      Uranus FTW!
    • Bamborzled, on 02/10/2008, -3/+6While we're on the subject of jokes from primary school, I should also point out that there are people named "Dick", there's a type of mushroom called a "Shiitake", and a species of dog called a "Shih-tzu". So funny!
      • bagelmaster, on 02/10/2008, -1/+5What do you get if you breed a bulldog with a shih-tzu? A bull-*****! AHAHAAHAH GET IT?! ***** AHAHAHAAHAHAH
  • dicklogan, on 02/10/2008, -1/+68Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse!
  • Swarms, on 02/10/2008, -1/+58I can see my house from here.
    Seriously though, it's impressive, but this loses it's impact as soon as the Sun is out of the picture. Without some form of comparison, it's just this ridiculously big star is this much bigger than this other ridiculously big star.
    • Namaha, on 02/10/2008, -0/+16The last picture shows VY Canis Majoris compared to our sun.
    • csisop, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7It shows that the biggest stars are so incredibly huge it's almost impossible to comprehend and compare them to anything we know.
    • SuperWinner, on 02/10/2008, -1/+3Black holes are the most massive objects in the universe, some black holes are heavier than all the stars in the milky way galaxy combined.
      http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13166-bigg ...
      • ElectroBot, on 02/10/2008, -1/+2Massive (weight) - yes
        Biggest (size) - not necessarily. Yes, if the theory that galaxies have super-massive black holes at their center turns out to be true, then yes some black holes are the biggest objects in our KNOWN universe. But, most black holes are a lot smaller, some might even be as small as a needle point.
        • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -2/+1technically, the black holes themselves have no size, they are a singularity. when people talk about the "size" of black holes they are talking about the size of the event horizon, which is simply proportional to the total mass of the infinitely small black hole.
    • fuzzybeard, on 02/11/2008, -0/+2Sounds ridiculous to me.
    • shableep, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Think of it this way... Those stars are bigger than our entire solar system. It would've been kinda cool if they showed the general size of our solar system in comparison to those huge stars.
  • bigdirtymoose, on 02/10/2008, -5/+105So where does Xenu live?
    • Frnnkdlxx, on 02/10/2008, -8/+7Uranus...
    • ChaosProfessor, on 02/10/2008, -1/+11a space ship that kind of looks like a DC-10?
    • lys3rgic, on 02/10/2008, -0/+1Wasn't he trapped in a volcano on Earth, surrounded by a forcefield for all eternity?
    • tuqqer, on 02/10/2008, -0/+10Florida.
    • wonderworm, on 02/11/2008, -1/+3In a TAX FREE building receiving tax free donations from a brainwashed populous right next to Jesus and Mohamed in their TAX FREE buildings.

      Tell me it's fair again for me and every single American citizen to have to pay for the property taxes and income taxes of Churches? That's also why they claim the best and most expensive real estate............they don't pay a dime in property taxes because 100% of all other property owners are forced to subsidize these religions. Sure doesn't sound like a fair system or a separation of church and state to me.
  • NavS, on 02/10/2008, -3/+12Imagine if our Earth was the size of one of those gigantic stars... We'd never run out of anything...
    • J4k3, on 02/10/2008, -1/+9Yes indeed, but the gravity alone would squash your spine like a toothpick. Even a planet the size of Jupiter would be nearly impossible to live on, as that would be about 6x earth's gravity (IIRC). I don't even want to think what kind of massive forces such an enormous star could exert...a spaceship coming anywhere near it would be doomed as there would be no escape.
      • KingGorilla, on 02/10/2008, -0/+13Well we'd evolve with super strong spines to combat the gravity.
      • ErrorS, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7As a matter of fact, some (might be all of the larger ones, I'm not sure) are far less denser than the Earth.. some of the bigger ones are more like hot clouds of gasses that are lighter than our atmosphere all the way to the core. The gravity being on the 'surface' of these stars shouldn't be very big at all. The idea is that even when they die, they don't compact into a solid core.. they just cool down and slowly spread out.

        Compare it to a planet like Jupiter, it has stronger gravity than earth (if you were standing on it).. but a planet like Saturn which is still much larger than earth actually has LESS gravity than the planet earth (as if you were standing on it), because Saturn's density is less. These large stars have density closer to clouds of gas that make up the milky way than even lower density planets like Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.

        Of course noone knows for sure, they're all theories..
        • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -0/+2we know densities and masses pretty well. the sun, for example, has a density of about 1 gram per cubic centimeter, about equivalent to water, but white dwarfs can range from 10^3 - 10^8 grams/c^3, and neutron stars can have densities as high as 10^15.

          The earth has a density of 5.52 grams/c^3, and saturn has a density of 0.69 grams/c^3, but the earth has a total mass of 5.98 × 10^24 kg and saturn has a total mass of 5.69 x 10^26 kg. So although saturn is significantly less dense, its total mass causes it to still have a much greater gravitational field than the earth.
          • eggnet, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1But you're ignoring the part about gravity on the "surface" of the planet. Total mass matters, but so does your distance from the center of mass.
          • Laminarcissus, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0Not ignoring it, just not spelling it out. It's a good catch on your part, so here's the math.

            Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation determines the surface gravity of a celestial object accounting for the mass of the object (m), the equatorial radius of the body (r), and the gravitational constant (G), yielding:

            ag= G*(m/r^2)

            But in this case you also need to know the centripetal force pulling outward due to the rotation of the body, and that's given by

            ac = 4pi^2(r/T^2)

            Where T is the rotational period of the body.

            So put them together and you get:

            g = (Gm/r^2) - ((4pi^2 * r)/T^2)

            Run the numbers for earth, and you show earth's surface gravity at the equator to be 9.78033 m/s^2

            Run the numbers for Saturn, and you get 10.44541 m/s^2 -- slightly more, about 6% greater than earths gravity.

            So the distance of the surface from the center of mass and total mass are certainly a factor, but so is, interestingly enough, its short rotational period. Saturn has a nine times larger radius than earth, but its day is only about ten hours long. So for all the gravity pulling you down, centrifugal force is pulling you out.

            Nifty.
        • Chordinator, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0Regardless of the accuracy of your claims, you sir impressed me with all of those numbers. Dugg.
      • jimmick, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3Good luck crushing a toothpick.
        You'll just hurt your finger
    • whyufail, on 02/10/2008, -1/+12Sure we would. Think about our size in comparison to this planet, yet we've still managed to ***** it up. We would just continue to breed and consume with abandon and it would take slightly longer for the human parasite to hollow out the world, that's all.
      • dezmo, on 02/10/2008, -6/+1i agree! everyone should just kill themselves because we are so evil! you go first whyfail!
    • ghamal, on 02/10/2008, -2/+6An earth the sie of VY Canis Majoris could probably support trillions of trillions of "people." Imagine what the size of your IM buddy list would be!
    • Radical5, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0...or maybe just a super earth would be good.
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157. ...
    • Orb9, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Anyone read Dragons Egg? Try living on the surface of a Neutron star!
    • peedeeramone, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0plane flights would be abominable....

      damnit, i dont want to see japan that bad.

      that and google maps download would be like a g-TB
  • mindware, on 02/10/2008, -1/+2I like this version better:
    http://www.thoughtware.tv/videos/show/350
  • moo113, on 02/10/2008, -1/+9If living in Canada has taught me anything, it is the size that counts.
    • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7If living in the US has taught me anything, it is that I'm not entirely sure where Canada is.
      • Radical5, on 02/11/2008, -0/+4That's because of the American education system, not your fault.
        • Laminarcissus, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0Thank you, and next time I get too drunk at a bar I'll say that I was "overserved..."
  • doublsh0t, on 02/10/2008, -1/+4You can effectively "pause" .gif images, in firefox at least, by right clicking on the firefox window represented in the taskbar. I needed to do that a few times to take in the scope of this. This has been done a few times, but it was a nice representation of how insignificant little dust particles we are...
  • Herv3, on 02/10/2008, -0/+5I like it, but would of also liked to have seen the particular moons of Jupiter. At least the ones of interest like Titan and Europa.
    • Namaha, on 02/10/2008, -0/+7Titan orbits Saturn.
      • Herv3, on 02/10/2008, -0/+5Thank for the correction, but I think you get my point.
  • deadnoob, on 02/10/2008, -1/+7wow! these planets and stars have a lot more noise than i thought.
  • JonathanB, on 02/10/2008, -4/+1what the...
  • Richandler, on 02/10/2008, -8/+5I like how some of the stars are about as bigger as our entire solar system.
  • DjOverEZ, on 02/10/2008, -4/+13***** the sun!
    • tgc1, on 02/10/2008, -4/+3In soviet russia, the sun ***** y... ah forget it... i've got nothing.
    • TonyLocNE, on 02/11/2008, -2/+1yes, yes... ***** the only reason we are in existence right now... ***** you sun
    • atgmac, on 02/11/2008, -0/+3Painful.
    • fadingsignal, on 02/11/2008, -0/+0Yes! Blow it up! Blow it up!!
  • OropheR, on 02/10/2008, -2/+3A definitely real deserved digg.
  • ORMEs, on 02/10/2008, -3/+33We're definitely alone. Yep......
  • whyufail, on 02/10/2008, -0/+9The universe is kinda like a cartoon where the tiny fish gets eaten by a larger fish which is then eaten by and even larger fish which is eaten by a yet even larger fish which is eaten by....
  • daxsymbiont, on 02/10/2008, -2/+7canis majoris.
  • mooseontheloose, on 02/10/2008, -1/+30At that scale sizes are pretty much incomprehensible. Humans can't really understand how big that is no matter how many times you see it. It's like trying to picture a googolplex. You just know it's really really ***** big.
  • crashposition, on 02/10/2008, -0/+3You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen...
  • mindware, on 02/10/2008, -20/+5When you open your eyes to a universal perspective, something awe inspiring stays with you and helps you see life in a whole new way.

    What do we know? Change happens. Science has learned that the Universe has been expanding for an estimated 16 billion years. By studying this currently accelerating expansion of the Universe and tracing it backwards in time, Humanity has come to realize something extraordinary. We now know that everything in our known Universe was at one time infinitely compressed as a singular point of energy, a Singularity, a point of infinite density.

    What does this mean? Everything you see when you look outside your window, when look up into the night sky, from stars to galaxies, to space itself can be traced back to have an indivisible common origin with everything else.

    From a universal perspective, every single instance in this universe is an extension of you and you are an extension of it.

    Science shows that heavier elements that compose everything we see today were forged within dying stars, that existed long before the earth was formed.

    If your very essence is composed of elements that have been evolving ever since the beginning of space-time, for billions of years, in a sense we can then understand that part of you is in truth older than most would've thought.

    In terms of age, as life, we are not as old as we often think we are. Perhaps, from this perspective, we should not only be counting your age in terms of decades, but in the billions of years. The fact that you are alive today, and that your body is literally made of star stuff, is living proof of this.

    As descendants of life, we may yet widen our perspectives of what we really are. Your biological essence did not appear out of thin air, but rather, it is composed of cells that endured many hardships, and found a way to have divided, evolved and multiplied over millions of years. It is information that has condensed under universal processes.

    Sooner or later the Universe is faced with this dilemma. You have not only been as you see yourself right now. Your essence of life, has, in fact, experienced the past as your individual parents and even those before them, recursively. Everything that makes you would not exist otherwise.

    From this perspective, the essence that encompasses you is linked to every other entity that has ever lived, and through you and others, will also be linked to those that have yet to come.

    The implications of this argument should not be lost in its simplicity. You're not only 'linked' to everything...you are part of everything, whether it is biological or not.

    Everything, every single organism you've ever encountered or have yet to see, has a singular, common point of origin with you. This is not a philosophical argument. When tracing all the matter and energy in the universe, a point of origin is evident.

    According to the theory of relativity matter and energy can be converted into one another.

    Regardless of its state, both matter and energy can be traced back to a point in which they were once part of the singularity.

    Since then, everything in our universe has continued to change. From subatomic particles to atoms and from atoms interacting randomly to form new molecules that never were before.

    A combination of observations and theory suggest that the first quasars and galaxies formed about a billion years after the Big Bang, and since then larger structures have been forming, such as galaxy clusters and super-clusters. Populations of stars have been aging and evolving, so that distant galaxies (which are observed as they were in the early universe) appear very different from nearby galaxies (observed in a more recent state). Moreover, galaxies that formed relatively recently appear markedly different from galaxies formed at similar distances but shortly after the Big Bang.

    This means that the Universe does change, and while you experience this consciously on a daily life, it also happens to you on a macro universal scale.

    Just like some energy came together to form stars, and some stars came together to form galaxies, our chaotic Universe can out of purely random interactions of its parts and enough time, produce a result that is of a higher level of order and in conscious terms perhaps worthy of being classified as an evolutionary achievement or evolutionary leap.

    Within billions of years, eventually those random interactions led to another giant leap. A leap that could rival the formation of the first atoms to the first galaxies: An information mechanism that could respond to stimuli and pass down information from one generation to the next (although not perfect on occasion, information would be passed down incorrectly and a mutation would take place).

    After billions of years, by chance, some rare mutations resulted favorable, allowing life to be better fit for living under a constantly changing environment.

    What am I getting at here? Everything has been in constant change, this process has not stopped. We live in an age of wonder.

    Next time you look at another being with kindness and humility in your eyes, try to understand that you're seeing a reflection of yourself and the universe within that entity. In a sense, everything you do to that person, you are doing to yourself, everything you do to yourself, you're doing to everyone else. When you hold the hand of that someone you love, you're holding the hand of an entity that took billions of years in the making. Someone who shares something very special with you, and both of you do too with everything else. We are encompassed by ourselves.

    Ever since the universe evolved life on this planet, an instance of us has been. The essence of everything that is you, the molecules, your cells, your skin, has changed, but it has done so for billions of years.

    Similarly to the way that you, as life, have a point of origin that did not begin in the womb, the evolution of life is but a brief cosmic step of a macro universal process. Let us call this Universal Evolution, or the evolution of Information on a universal scale (a process that is not limited to biological evolution, but from which biological evolution emerged from).

    You are part of this process. From an intelligent, conscious perspective, now you have the ability to play a role in this process like none before.

    Look around you, and you may yet realize who and what you are. Your amazing potential. To have had your essence forged inside in the hearts of stars, to have evolved hands to feel and eyes to see, ears to listen. After being nearly eradicated off the face of the planet by meteors, you've had the ability to survive the toughest of ice ages, powerful droughts and dangerous moments of starvation. You have discovered fire. You've learned to form ideas about the world, becoming increasingly more aware of yourself. You have learned to pass down information beyond genetics, via language, literature and now the Internet. You have looked into the past and learned to reason for the future. You've created technology and inspired yourself throughout generations...In our times, through intelligence and technology, you are exponentially becoming.

    We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities. The Universe has found a way to reason about itself, and we are experiencing that new evolutionary step, one which does not seem to have any particular singular point of importance, but to which we can give value as sentient beings, if we choose to.

    What meaning do you want for your life?

    There is much yet for us as life to find out and understand. Through reason, Science and Technology we're breaking away the shells of ignorance and the barriers that limit us from achieving our dreams.

    Where we go from here, is entirely up to us, because if we choose to, the Universe will no longer be driven by chance...but by choice. H+.

    Be a part of it:

    http://www.Thoughtware.TV

    This is the time to be alive to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.
    • KingGorilla, on 02/10/2008, -1/+6That was kinda ghey, not to mention long, which contributes to the weaksauce
    • dildoolielly, on 02/10/2008, -2/+2God that was almost unbearable to read. You are a prime example of the absolute ignorance in this world.

      24000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes, 74% of them are children.
      About 800 million people haven’t enough food
      5700 Africans die each day of Aids

      But I sure am glad you are able to keep your rosy-colored glasses on. That white suburban lifestyle must have helped some.

      Oh well, ignorance is bliss
    • FunkyLlama, on 02/10/2008, -1/+1How nauseatingly saccharine.
    • bagelmaster, on 02/10/2008, -1/+4Way too ***** long, did not read.
    • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -3/+1again dude, *throw away* the bongwater, do not drink it.
    • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1you never actually made a coherent point. not to say that you didn't bring up valid information here, but why in a 10-page digg comment? and what are you trying to say? you just led me in circles and then left me confused.
    • gudnbluts, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
      How amazingly unlikely is your birth
      And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
      Because there's bugger all down here on Earth.
  • bitterman316, on 02/10/2008, -10/+0why a gif ?
    • bjtitus, on 02/11/2008, -0/+1Could a png or jpeg move.....

      I think NOT
    • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -0/+4because when this was made, .gif's were state of the art.
  • grimlenn, on 02/10/2008, -1/+7now imagine all that mass that you just saw... condensed to the size of a ping-pong ball. you just imagined a standard black hole - nothing special...
    • Laminarcissus, on 02/10/2008, -0/+3physically, a black hole is exactly infinitely smaller than a ping-pong ball.
  • fisho77, on 02/10/2008, -12/+3Funny, the only thing that dwarfs that last star is al gore's ego
    • Corrosionx, on 02/10/2008, -2/+4And my balls.
      • steveboutin, on 02/11/2008, -3/+3how the ***** did you get two diggs for saying "and my balls"?!?
        i gotta find a new news site.
  • jkleinfeld, on 02/10/2008, -3/+21Screw Iraq, we need to go to VY Canis Majoris for all our energy needs!
  • nubnub, on 02/10/2008, -10/+4Old, but still worthy of a digg.
  • DarkGerbil, on 02/10/2008, -1/+5Burried as inaccurate. The earth is flat.
  • visiblepulse, on 02/10/2008, -1/+2Earth is a fairly nice little speck of dust.
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