If the Milky Way was the size of North America

And while I have you here..

Loading Twitter/X Embed...
If tweet fails to load, click here.

quote:

---

NASA released some new close up footage of solar flares and holy moly

it doesn't even look real!

"NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory just released stunning close-range footage of solar flares, revealing the Sun as a maze of blazing plasma loops and chaotic magnetic fields.

The new recording shows dark filaments slicing across bright, twisting arcs as massive bursts of energy erupt and reshape in real time.

To put the scale in perspective: the Sun is about 1.39 million km wide, roughly 109 times the size of Earth. What looks like small sparks in the footage are actually structures larger than our entire planet.

These visuals aren't just beautiful, they're a reminder of how powerful and unpredictable our nearest star truly is."

- nasa

---

quote:

---

If the Milky Way was the size of North America

---

Some big ol' gal would have already eaten it.

quote:

---

the Milky Way

---

we will never leave it

Interesting thread

I was recently reminded of the cosmic calendar

Key Aspects of the Cosmic Calendar:
Creator and Popularization:
The concept was popularized by astronomer Carl Sagan in his 1977 book The Dragons of Eden and his 1980 television series Cosmos. It was later reused in the 2014 series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Time Scale Conversion:
At this immense scale, each unit of time represents a vast period of actual time.
1 second: equals approximately 438 years.
1 minute: equals approximately 26,000 years.
1 hour: equals approximately 1.6 million years.
1 day: equals approximately 38 million years.


Notable Events:
Major cosmic and biological events are placed on specific dates throughout the year.

January 1: The Big Bang occurs at midnight.
March 1: The Milky Way Galaxy forms.
September 9: Our Solar System and Sun form.
December 25: Dinosaurs appear.
December 30: The extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs occurs.
December 31, 11:59:47 PM: The invention of writing and the beginning of recorded history.
December 31, 11:59:59 PM: Modern history, including world wars and spaceflight, occurs in the last second

Glad to see the dispensary is open.

If the sun was a golf ball on the northshore, the next closest star is about Nashville. Mind blown.

quote:

---

The sun isn’t real

---

The sun is real, it just gets turned off at night

And most of it is empty.

Just dealing with the solar system is enough. I use this to explain to my students just how big things are and just how much space is in between.

quote:

---

Scale: Sun diameter = 1 inch.

Scaled planet diameters:

Mercury: 0.0035 inches
Venus: 0.0087 inches
Earth: 0.0092 inches
Mars: 0.0049 inches
Jupiter: 0.100 inches
Saturn: 0.083 inches
Uranus: 0.037 inches
Neptune: 0.036 inches


Distance to the Sun:

Mercury: 41.58 in (3.47 ft)
Venus: 77.70 in (6.47 ft)
Earth: 107.42 in (8.95 ft)
Mars: 163.67 in (13.64 ft)
Jupiter: 559.03 in (46.59 ft)
Saturn: 1029.32 in (85.78 ft)
Uranus: 2064.36 in (172.03 ft)
Neptune: 3234.29 in (269.52 ft)

---

Also weird that they zoom into a park in Chicago:

LINK