Sunday 3 June 2012

Scales and a bit of random science

If an atoms' nucleus were the size of a tennis ball then the electrons orbiting the nucleus would be at least 1km away. If the Earth were 1cm away from the Sun and this cm was deemed as 1 Astronomical unit (1AU), then the Oort Cloud ( where the Suns' gravitational pull ends ), would be 0.5km away. If the Sun were a standard-sized Basketball, the Earth would be a single pimple on that Basketball. You could fir just over 1,000,000 Earths insidethe Sun and 1,000 Earths inside Jupiter. The Sun accounts for 99% of the entire mass of the Solar System and is an incredible 860,000 miles in diameter. Everything in the Solar System could fit inside the Sun! If you wanted to turn Earth into a blackhole then you would have to shrink it down to the size of a PEA. Jupiter is essentially a failed star - it didnt accrete enough mass to begin fusion (its not far off being classed as a brown-dwarf). Earths atmosphere extends to over 60 miles, which seems vast but compared to our diamter (approx 7,000 miles), its not, this explains why it iscalled "the thin blue line".

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