The Ultimate Collection of Scaling Visualisations

Lots of links to scaling visualisations and size comparisons from galaxy clusters to the carbon atom.

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Amazing: Scale of the Universe

…check out this incredible interactive Flash animation from NewGrounds that provides a scale of the Universe, from the very small (0.0000000001 yoctometers) to as large as we know, the estimated size of the Universe. Click on the image, or here to access, and after it loads, use the slider at the bottom to zoom in and out. Gives you a new appreciation for all that’s out there, big and small!

via universetoday.com/amazing-scale-of-the-universe/

Infographic: The Mariana Trench To Scale

It`s the deepest part of the world`s ocean and the lowest elevation of the surface of the Earth. Yeah, it`s that deep.

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Let’s start with the small to the minuscule. Check out this fantastic zoom-in simulation provided by the University of Utah:

Cell Size and Scale

learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Now for something bigger, two breathtaking videos:

The Stars and the Grand Universe

The same as infographic can be found here:

Holy Cow We’re Small! Biggest Stars to Biggest Galaxies

astranaut.org/holy_cow_were_small_biggest_stars.php

Now let’s take a look at the whole universe, shall we?

The Known Universe by AMNH

Even more on my own Location page:

My Location in the Universe

xixidu.net/location/

Did you know?

If New York to Chicago = from Earth to Alpha Centauri, then Earth to the Moon is equivalent to 0.3 millimeters.

scienceblogs.com/gnxp/habitable_planets_alpha_centau.php

Solar System Scale Model

This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here.

phrenopolis.com/perspective/solarsystem/

A simulated voyage through the solar system

At the speed of today’s fastest spacecraft (~20 km/second), it would take almost ten years to travel this distance. Even at the speed of light, the trip would last 5 1/2 hours. In this animation, the apparent speed of the viewer is over 300 times the speed of light.

classzone.com/earth_science/visualizations/

Gravity Wells

xkcd.com/681_large/

Now let’s look at other kinds of scales…

The MegaPenny Project

Visualizing huge numbers can be very difficult. People regularly talk about millions of miles, billions of bytes, or trillions of dollars, yet it’s still hard to grasp just how much a “billion” really is. The MegaPenny Project aims to help by taking one small everyday item, the U.S. penny, and building on that to answer the question: “What would a billion (or a trillion) pennies look like?”

kokogiak.com/megapenny/

What does one TRILLION dollars look like?

pagetutor.com/trillion/

One Trillion Dollars Visualized

How bad hyperinflation can get

The cumulative devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar was such that a stack of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (26 zeros) two dollar bills (if they were printed) in the peak hyperinflation would have be needed to equal in value what a single original Zimbabwe two-dollar bill of 1978 had been worth. Such a pile of bills literally would be light years high, stretching from the Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy.

boingboing.net/how-bad-hyperinflati.html

Trillions

Trillions from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.

This is a short film (a fast paced preview of a larger effort) by MAYA Design created to put some perspective on the invisible but fast approaching challenges and opportunities in the pervasive computing age.

Tanker Size Comparison

wikimedia.org/Tanker-size-comparison.png

Infographic: the compleat and astounding history of storage

xixidu.tumblr.com/infographic-the-compleat-and-astounding-history

Infographic: A Day in the Internet

Some of us never realize how huge the Internet really is.

onlineeducation.net/internet/

It’s a small world…

The Photonics Research Group of Ghent University-IMEC has fabricated a world map on a scale of 1 trillionth.

photonics.intec.ugent.be/publications/MediaCoverage/2009-12-17/