I’ve looked at the very small scale of the universe, what about if I go the other way and have a look at the large scale of the universe, what is out there? Lets find out more.
I’m going to start off with the SI base unit of length, the metre. I’ll try and do as many conversions to imperial units as I can, but I’ll stop once we get to light years. I’m going to go up in scale looking at both the size of objects and distances involved as we go from the metre upwards. This is also going to be my longest video to date, so bring snacks. Let’s get on shall we.
So to start we have the metre. This is 3.28 feet and the standard length measurement in the SI system. It was originally defined as 1, 10 millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator. After a number of redefinitions, it was finally defined in 1983 as the distance light travels in 1 over 299 792 458 ths of a second. In fact we’ve now set the speed of light so that any revisions of the speed of light wouldn’t change the speed of light itself, they’d alter the size of a metre.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:42 The Metre
3:39 1 Kilometre
6:11 1000 Kilometres
9:16 1 million Kilometres
11:39 1 Billion Kilometres
15:13 1 Trillion Kilometres
16:04 1 Light Year (roughly)
22:32 1000 Light Years
26:09 1 Million Light Years
29:58 1 Billion Light Years
Dimorphos Image Credit By NASA/Johns Hopkins APL -
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-s-final-images-prior-to-impact (image link); original upload from
https://dart.jhuapl.edu/Gallery/ (image link), Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123433723
Map of Tethys
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Map of Rhea
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Map of Triton
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lunar & Planetary Institute
Map of the moon
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Map of Io
US Geological Survey Astrogeology Research Program
Map of Ganymede
A Map of GanymedeNASA (original photographies)/Björn Jónsson/Feldo, CC BY-** 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-**/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jewel Bug Nebula Image
NASA, ESA, and J. Kastner (RIT)
https://esahubble.org/images/heic2011c/
Helix Nebula Image
NASA, ESA, C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University), M. Meixner and P. McCullough (STScI)
Crab Nebula image
By NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) - HubbleSite: gallery, release., Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=516106
Veil Nebula Image
NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team
https://esahubble.org/images/heic1520a/
Tarantula nebula
IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/041/01GA76MYFN0FMKNRHGCAGGYCVQ
Sextans A Image
KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Data obtained and processed by: P. Massey (Lowell Obs.), G. Jacoby, K. Olsen, & C. Smith (AURA/NSF)
Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
Triangulum Galaxy Image
ESO
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1424a/
Sombrero Galaxy Image
NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
https://esahubble.org/images/opo0328a/
Hoag’s Object
By NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: Ray A. Lucas (STScI/AURA) -
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/21/image/a/http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020909.html, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=610534
NGC 404 (Mirach’s Ghost) Galaxy
en:NASA, en:STScI, en:WikiSky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
M81 Image
By NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) -
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0710a/ (very high quality ([cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen//heic0710a.jpg JPEG file] 346 MB)
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/19/image/a/ (direct link), Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2173424
Sloan Great Wall Image
Pablo Carlos Budassi, CC BY-** 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-**/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
GN-z11 image
NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale University), G. Brammer (STScI), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2016/news-2016-07.html; see also
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-team-breaks-cosmic-distance-record/ and
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1604a/
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