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Earth may be a special place, but it's really not all that big compared to other planets in the solar system, as blogger Brad Goodspeed illustrates in this video. The planetary images are tweaked to show how big other planets would appear if they orbited our world at the distance of the moon, 240,000 miles (380,000 kilometers) away.
In the video, which has gone viral, Jupiter appears to fill the night sky. Goodspeed has since updated the original post with a note explaining that the video does not represent the entire night sky, and that Jupiter would actually not fill the entire sky, as was pointed out to him in a comment on his blog. You can follow along the ensuing discussion in this post.
Scientific accuracy aside, the video does accomplish its goal of making Earthlings feel small. And the discussion about the accuracy of the video, according to Goodspeed, is a good lesson in the scientific process.
"It's my hope that by pointing out my own errors the skeptical ethic might be introduced to some new people. And by using this video as a case study in the discussion between art and science, the whole mission of this blog is advanced," he writes.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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I feel that because we humans have made so many scientific, and technological advances we forget that all the other planets; besides Mars and Venus are much bigger than Earth. Also, we don't think about how large our galaxy truly is and that we here in the Milky Way galaxy have many neighbors in their own galaxy's in the vast realms of "space".
You forgot Mercury
...and Pluto, if you want to still count it as a planet. Either way, it's smaller than the earth.
The point about galaxies is valid, although I'm not certain who the "neighbors" are supposed to be. Is that just a generic reference to other planets or to their possible occupants?
It hurts the brain to think how much space is out there, Earth is microscopic comparing even to Milky Way and still, such small humans have such big egos!!!!!! Most of them at least.
Palin is from mars.
Always the requisite troll.
on edit--wrong reply
Troll yes, but still truthful. I honestly associate red with that woman now.
I love the video. Awesome. I didn't know how large Neptune is. Thanks.
I love this video too, kinda scary...I also did not realize how large Neptune is - wow.
earth is cool
take good care of it
Nothing to see here! Move along, folks! Science isn't real, just rely on the bible. Besides curing smallpox, putting a man on the moon, and winning World War II, really, what has science given us?
What's with that, Toasty? No one's been anti-science here so far, so why start with the sarcasm?
Because it's really fun.
It's trolling
Meh, fair enough.
The aqueducts?
rofl
what?? MArs, Earth Neptune and Jupiter??? Gee wiz....What about Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto.....oh yeah...scratch Pluto..
Why not keep the little guy around, along with Eris and, sure, Ceres as well? Pluto would be about two-thirds as wide as the moon, in lovely shades of brown. Mercury, meanwhile, would be about a third bigger than the moon.
jermaine88, are you for real? Are you paid to slam Palin (or the GOP, or conservatives, or republicans, or Tea-Partiers) at every given chance or something? Does your shear hatred of all things you disagree with truly compel you to spew your vitriol even when it is totally unnecessary?
It's not hatred, it's just the need for attention. Apparently his mommy didn't pay enough attention to him at home.
Something interesting, too, is that the Moon seems close. But, with an Earth diameter of 7,926mi, a Moon diameter of 2,159mi, and an Earth-Moon distance of 238,857mi, if the Earth is scaled to a 1 inch diameter, the Moon is about 1/4 inch in diameter and is about 30 inches away.
Cool!
In respect to the galaxy, we are of little consequence.
So? The galaxy doesn't care whether I live or die, but I do. I'm not going to make this galaxy or any other or all of them together the measure of human values.
Little consequence? Not necessarily. So far as we can tell, we are the only technological civilization in the galaxy. So we're the only ones with even a chance to spread life to the rest of the galaxy, which may be sterile and unconscious without us. I call that a pretty important role -- here's hinge we can live up to it!
And I can see Jupiter from my HOUSE !!!!
Awesome to get a sense of scale.
I think any use of visual aids (like this) to help us grasp the immensity of the solar system, galaxy, and universe we live in is great. Good job!
Blasphemy! The creator of this video is going to hell to suggest that the planets could do anything other than what God created them to do.
Really? I mean...really?
Oxymoron with the emphasis on moron...nice screen name tho.
You guys take a great video like this and turn it in to a Political debate with Palin references no less? No wonder people have no faith in science. Too many of the scientists have lost perspective about their own humility.
This video should be a lesson about perspective, instead people are arguing about American (North American) geopolitical bull@!$%#.
Talk about missing the point.
What a terrifying image to imagine Jupiter basically swallowing up the night sky! I would have liked to have seen Saturn too.
Problem is, Saturn couldn't orbit at the moon's relative distance, because the Earth would be just inside the edge of the ring system, I think... We'd be a "shepherd moon" of Saturn... Although, it would be nice to see Saturn represented at 240K miles away... Oh wait, we have Cassini for that... Heh.
As the Ambassador of Saturn with my 53 neighboring moons, we must protest at the snub, which was directed our way by your puny planet ( merth / shmerth/ earth, something like that. By not recognizing the most beatiful planet in the solar system, you may have commited an act of war.
Venus was also not mentioned, but who cares ? As they have a hot @!$%#house of a planet. You puny punks on........errrrr........ahhhh......Whatever. Need to learn your place in the pecking order.............As your planet wouldn't even make a proper outhouse for Uranus.
wow, jupiter is huge. I wish we did have other planetary objects orbiting the earth...only for the visual though, im sure the gravitation and sun blockage would distort the planet.
Saturn? Venus? Mercury?
Saturn? Venus? Mercury? etc...