Astronomer Liz (there are no second names at this, the adorable level of learning) from the Royal Greenwich Observatory explains the scale of just about everything with the help of a nifty animation created for the Observatory’s educational programme by London studio Beakus.
Show it to a small child. Or revert to being one.
An extremely accurate scrolling depiction of relative distances between planets in the solar system created by interactive media designer Josh Worth in which the Earth’s moon (diameter 3475km) is represented by one pixel. Worth sez:
I was talking about the planets with my 5-year-old daughter the other day. I was trying to explain how taking a summer vacation to Mars in the future will be a much bigger undertaking than a trip to Palm Springs (though equally as hot). I kept trying to describe the distance using metaphors like “if the earth was the size of a golf ball, then Mars would be across the soccer field” etc., but I realized I didn’t really know much about these distances, besides the fact that they were really large and hard to understand.
Visitors can scroll sideways or jump to various planets via buttons at the top of the map.
Explore it here.
An exhaustively researched (currently in its fifth iteration with future updates including Dune and Mass Effect planned) fictional spaceship size comparison chart by German digital artist Dirk Loechel featuring craft of all descriptions from Star Wars, Warhammer, Babylon5, Star Trek, Wall-E, Serenity, Farscape, Silent Running, Independence Day, AvP, Battlestar Galactica and dozens more.
Link to gob-smackingly massive version here.
UPDATE: Still not sufficiently sated by the rocket-scaling above? Check out Jeff Russel’s Starship Dimensions – an entire site dedicated to this sort of thing.
io9 (H/T: JCDSR)
A 14m tall 16.7m long inflatable duck created by conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman was towed into Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour this week, and will remain on display there until June, spreading teh happy, unless it’s destroyed by Gojira first.
The artist sez:
The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!
Thanks Niall O’M
[Key: Chucky, The Wicked Witch of the West, T-Rex, King Kong, Rancor (Star Wars VI), Megatron (Transformers), 50-Foot Woman, Mr Stay Puft (Ghostbusters), Tripod (War Of The Worlds), Gojira (Godzilla), Clover (Cloverfield) and your mom.]
http://vimeo.com/57685359
REM’s “Losing My Religion” digitally reworked with a major scale.
*mind blown*
(Hat tip: Fergal Rock)
The relative scale of things from quantum foam to the observable universe: an incredible visual transition from the very small to the very large created by Cary and Michael Huang – updating an earlier, similarly impressive presentation they made in 2010.
The video is just an illustration. Here’s the actual interactive.
(UPDATE: Cary and Michael are 14 year-old twins from California.)
