siloartist Loc: Onaga, KS

NOTLguy Loc: Niagara on the Lake, Ontario

That really puts size and distance into perspective. Thanks for sharing.

I don't know if anyone has seen it, but National Geographic have a magazine on the stands right now called Beyond Our Galaxy.

If you are even remotely interested in space, this magazine is a must read.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

Back in the late 80's when I first started using AutoCad it shipped with a full scale drawing of the solar system. This included a plaque on the lunar lander on the Moon (We came in Peace).

BTW..where was the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars? Did I blink and miss it?

nairiam Loc: Bonnie Scotland

WOW

HEART Loc: God's Country - COLORADO

"Boggles the mind" doesn't begin to explain it.

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

No, it's between Mars and Jupiter. He has a comment in there about it, but none of them would be big enough to appear at that scale.

It's always fascinated me how the gaps get bigger. Most 'maps' portray Saturn as being 1 'step' further out from Jupiter, but in fact, it is about as far past Jupiter as Jupiter is from the Sun! Then, the gaps start to get big...

LarJgrip Loc: The Fraser Valley

Thank you for that silo,

And then you consider that our solar system doesn't even register in our galaxy…

…and then you consider that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there. And that's only as far as we can reach right now.

My brain is starting to spark and smoke right now.

Man, God is awesome!!

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

And now cosmologists are talking about multiverse instead of universe. Talk about mind boggling!!!!

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Very interesting. And don't forget Monty Python's take on the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

SpeedyWilson Loc: Upstate South Carolina

These videos do a great job of describing the vastness of the universe:

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewKtSKbWZUI

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlroUGiihx8&feature=relmfu

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiI5gb6ZR04&feature=related

Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CetMLmH_b6Q&feature=related

Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIoBCgRC7Uo&feature=related

Ambrose Loc: North America

Holy light years! I've seen other scale comparisons, but I think this one does a great job of putting perspective on it. Combine this with Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" and I'm feeling mighty tiny right now.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

"The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.
“Have some sense of proportion!” she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her.
And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

Sorry, it needed to be said....

SteveR Loc: Michigan

hondo...In a sense...when God sent forth the Universe, much if not everything had been predetermined.

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

Predetermined? Are you serious? Then free will means nothing. And if free will means nothing, then how can anyone be responsible for their actions?

What you seem to be saying is that your life was predetermined before time began, and you're just along for the ride. Doesn't sound like any Christian philosophy I'm aware of.