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top 200 commentsshow all 245

[–]aramid 147 points148 points ago

Now with more pixels! (And more galaxy!)

I tried very hard to get the radii and distances correct. I also attempted to properly align the galactic disk, but I'm not confident in my result.

[–]stufff 86 points87 points ago

please increase the size of this jpeg so that the picture is on a 1:1 scale with reality.

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 115 points116 points ago

At ~15 billion inches between the Earth and the Moon and a screen resolution of 100 DPI (1366*768 pixels on a 15.6 inch laptop screen), this picture would have to have to be 1.5 trillion by 1.5 trillion pixels (assuming a perfect square).

That is 2.290335 x 1024 pixels in this one photo.

According to this site, an uncompressed .bmp file would be ~6,871,005,017,162 TB in size to accommodate this many pixels.

According to this site, jpeg compression would mean a .jpg file would be ~50% of the uncompressed size, making a 1:1 size .jpg of this image ~3.5 trillion TB in size.

According to this site, HDDs cost $0.075 per GB in December 2011. To buy a 3.5 trillion TB hard drive, it would cost you ~$258 trillion.

EDIT: If your screen has a different DPI to mine, multiply the file size/prices etc. by (your DPI/100)2 .

[–]HighBees 40 points41 points ago

Sounds doable. When can I expect it?

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 30 points31 points ago

I'll have it ready by half past.

[–]Justin19954 12 points13 points ago

Half past what?????

[–]ScotteeMC 49 points50 points ago

Yes.

[–]Justin19954 8 points9 points ago

I understand now, I can't wait for.

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 2 points3 points ago

As ScotteeMC calculated below, you'll only have to wait 92 million years!

[–]spiffoy 1 point2 points ago

Half past never?

[–]HittingSmoke 6 points7 points ago

Well, fuck.

[–]stufff 15 points16 points ago

If the image was that blown up you would have significant areas of solid color, which I would think would provide a lot more than 50% compression, I'm thinking at least 80%. You're trying to scam me out of several trillion dollars, you work for the HD cartel or something?

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 12 points13 points ago

Ahh well noticed, sir! You're a clever man! You know what clever men do? They future-proof their PCs! How about our 3.5 trillion TB hard drive? A steal at only $258 trillion!

[–]stufff 2 points3 points ago

Well I'd want to set them up in a RAID so I guess I'll take 4. Can you estimate how long it will take me to generate 3.5TB of parity data?

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 2 points3 points ago

Erm. Wat

[–]stufff 2 points3 points ago

In a RAID 1 setup with 4 drives, 3 drives act as 1 and a 4th drive is filled with parity (recovery) data in the event one of the 3 drives fails. It seems to take my file server about 24 hours to generate 2 TB of parity data when I first set up the RAID.

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 5 points6 points ago

Interesting. So it's about 2 TB/day. It would take you 1.75 trillion days to fill up one of our HDDs at your rate! That's 4.79 billion years! Only a very clever man would future-proof his PC by 4.79 billion years!

[–]buck-futter 1 point2 points ago

FALSE. RAID1 is direct mirroring of drives - 2 disks = 1 usable, 4 disks = 2 usable, you're thinking of RAID4 that has 1 disk of parity data for 4 disks = 3 usable. RAID5 is the same, but the parity is on a different disk each time. RAID5 is far more commonly used than RAID4. RAID Information

[–]stufff 0 points1 point ago

You're correct! I feel dumb because I should have known that. Thanks for the correction. I'm pretty sure I actually have a RAID 4 because that is what my NAS supports.

[–]Aerocity 4 points5 points ago

Here comes imgur's simple overload page.

[–]ScotteeMC 2 points3 points ago

According to myprobablywrong calculations, an image that size would take roughly 92 million years to download.

(Based on Imgur.com's data transfer of 3.17PB per month)

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 1 point2 points ago

Is that assuming a broadband connection the same speed as imgur's bandwidth speed?

If so, you'd need a D/L speed of 9784 Mb/s (Megabits per second).

[–]ScotteeMC 2 points3 points ago

Yeah, I mean, it's 92 million years in the future. The image will probably be beamed directly into the core of our sentient cloud or some shit like that.

[–]sutiibu 2 points3 points ago

Just ordered from newegg.

[–]VicLost 0 points1 point ago

I like how you have a bunch of upvotes, but no one has commented on how it would be $262.5 billion not trillion.

[–]Japokerscienceopoly 1 point2 points ago

Have you adjusted that to account for the fact that it will cost $0.075 per GB, not TB?

I probably should've said it costs $75 per TB instead. Ah well.

[–]Sevryn08 18 points19 points ago

Done, but I had to cut out some of the pic to fit on your monitor.

[–]Limpan 2 points3 points ago

How small do you think my monitor is?

[–]arav07 12 points13 points ago

ENHANCE.

[–]Gauntlet 3 points4 points ago

Done! You're standing in it - also it's 3D, updates in real-time and interactive. That was a hard days work.

-God.

[–]stufff 3 points4 points ago

Ugh I can never see 3D crap, no thanks!

[–]horseyhorseyhorsey 7 points8 points ago

Add a few wolves in that pic and we're talking.

[–]UrbtoOSU 7 points8 points ago

It's always hard for me to remember just how full of stars the sky is, too much light pollution in my area to make out more than the planets and a few bright ones.

Great picture!

[–]afcagroo 3 points4 points ago

Is the moon's orbit really 90 degrees off the plane of the ecliptic?

[–]aramid 6 points7 points ago

No, it's only like 5 degrees off the plane of the ecliptic (which is the plane in which Earth orbits). I'm pretty sure it's about 60 degrees off from the galactic disk, though, which is why it's drawn the way it is. It's surprisingly hard to find information about that, though, so I don't make any claims to perfect accuracy in alignment. I'm much more confident in the relative sizes and distances.

It's fun to think about our solar system hurtling through the void flat-on, though!

[–]CountMalachi 1 point2 points ago

So we can conclude that the Earth is the largest planet in the galaxy, followed by the moon.

[–]Kelphatron9000 0 points1 point ago

It looks like mitosis.

[–]plastic_cookware 0 points1 point ago

Enhance!

[–]mohawk75 165 points166 points ago

It's only a few inches.

[–]LongRun1 153 points154 points ago

That's what she said.

[–]Mustkunstn1k 42 points43 points ago

Maybe to you.

Edit: Relax, I'm just joking.

I do have a huge penis though.

[–]work0utn3rd 5 points6 points ago

"I'm fat, black, broke, and have no job... I do have a pretty big dick though. That keeps me happy."

[–]whatshesaidcontext 5 points6 points ago

But even as she said it, her voice wavered. She could not bear to see her son so sad. He had just gotten home from the first day of school, and was crying. He had been picked on by his classmates for having been born with his right arm about 4 inches shorter than his left, healthy, arm. Accompanying this, he was unable to curl three of the fingers on that hand. He was to grow up with constant reminders of his abnormality. She knew this, and was weighed down by the shame. She felt as if it was her fault for not producing a healthy child, that it was her fault. That she had cursed this child and let the father down, who originally was looking very much forward to bringing him up in a world of sports. Sometimes she could feel herself beginning to resent having the child, and she endlessly hated herself for thinking it.

[–]LongRun1 1 point2 points ago

Aww now I'm sad...

[–]whatshesaidcontext 0 points1 point ago

That's what she said!

to herself as she saw the photos, aware of the personal melodrama. But she kept looking through them. She was becoming increasingly aware, as of late, that she and her crush were incompatible romantically and looking for different things in life. Her hopes were not all that high to begin with, but she was loosing the remaining hope in the idea that she would ever find another person that took her away from the loneliness and beginning to fear that this one remaining friendship wouldn't last.

[–]plastic_cookware 2 points3 points ago

Golf Clap

[–]Aerocity 36 points37 points ago

What is this, a planet for ants?

[–]principe_di_reddit 17 points18 points ago

It has to be at least......THREE TIMES BIGGER

[–]Mende 5 points6 points ago

You accidentally a verb.

[–]principe_di_reddit 11 points12 points ago

sorry about that...sorry everyone....sorry

[–]sb3hxsb50[!] 2 points3 points ago

Don't do it again.

[–]SevenSixths 46 points47 points ago

Man. We landed on that thing like crazy.

[–]magicbaconmachine 5 points6 points ago

"I walked on your face!" - Buzz

[–]bassistwanted 6 points7 points ago

Crazy long time ago... :(

[–]IainStanford 9 points10 points ago

To be fair, not so much reason to go back there. But yes, would be nice if we could have these same thoughts about Mars by now.

EDIT: Actually on second thoughts, its been so long I think it is worth going back to the Moon. If not just to prove we can still do it...and for you know...practice run.

[–]carlmcfredbob 1 point2 points ago

Helium 3

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

Thanks, GERTY.

[–]mcaffrey 22 points23 points ago

That is an interesting physics question. At what elevation above sea level would you need to be to be able to jump off a solid surface (like the ISS) to escape earth's gravity and theoretically travel to the moon?

I don't have the skill & time to actually solve for it, but I think you would do it like this:

The force you need to overcome (gravity) is: F = Gm1m2/(r2) with m1 being the earth and m2 being the person.

So I guess we would need to solve for a force F where F is less than the force a man can generate while jumping.

No guarantee you would get to the moon before you died of old age, but if your corpse smacks into the moon at some point we'll call it a win.

[–]tjdavids 13 points14 points ago

I think old age wouldn't really be an issue when you account for the no air, or heat around.

[–]Kieroshark 6 points7 points ago

Considering space is a vacuum, I don't think the "lack of heat" is an issue at all, if anything you'd get too hot (think of how a thermos works).

No air on the other hand, is definitely pretty serious. :P

[–]cralledode 2 points3 points ago

No atmosphere means no insulation. The part of your body not in direct sunlight drops several hundred degrees below freezing, while the part of your body in direct sunlight gets up to several hundred degrees above boiling.

Edit: Seems I was on the right track here, but these two things happen at very different rates. The heat of the sun presents a much more immediate problem than heat loss to space, since a vacuum is a perfect insulator. You would eventually lose the heat on the "shade" side of your body, but not as fast as you would burn on the "sunlight" side.

[–]Kieroshark 1 point2 points ago

While you have the right idea there, the amount of time it would take for the part not in sunlight to actually cool down is far longer than you think, as the only method of heat loss is radiation.

Additionally, your body conducts heat, so heat from the hot side would warm the cold side far more than it would be cooled.

Your body radiates far less heat energy per square inch than you would receive from sunlight (assuming one side of you was facing the sun).

[–]ococody 1 point2 points ago

What if you did it in a suit of aluminum foil? or since its hypothetical, a perfect reflector?

[–]aramid 7 points8 points ago

Well, in order to actually escape from Earth's gravity, never to return, you have to reach escape velocity. There's no way around it; even if you're a trillion miles away, if you aren't going fast enough relative to Earth you can still fall back here. Fortunately, escape velocity decreases as you get further away, so your question still works.

You can rearrange the equation from that Wikipedia page to show that with a fixed jump speed, you can escape at a distance of (2GM)/(Ve2). I think a jump of 3.5 meters per second is achievable (a bit less than 8 MPH), G is a constant, and Earth weighs 6e24 kg. Final result? 6.5e13 meters.

If I'm already 40 billion miles away from Earth, I don't think visiting the moon will be a priority.

[–]kingoftown 7 points8 points ago

You need to account for the Gravity caused by the moon (which is adjusted by the distance away you are from the moon). This force will, in effect, counter the gravitational pull of the earth. At one point in space between the earth and the moon they will be equal, meaning you will not be pulled towards either body. At this position, if you were to jump, you would go from one body to the other.

Edit: So we have:

   F1 = G*me*m2/re^2 for the Force of the earth on you | me = mass earth, re = distance from earth
   F2 = G*mm*m2/rm^2 for the Froce of the moon on you | mm = mass moon, rm = distance from moon
   We want F1 = F2, so we have
   me/re^2 = mm/rm^2 (G and m2 cancel)
   me = 5.98 × 10^24 kg
   mm = 7.36 × 10^22 kilograms
   81.25 = re^2/rm^2 or 
   re ~= .11094*rm
   Or, if you are 44,381.65 km from the moon (355673.35 km from earth)

221,005 miles from earth will net a 0 force in either direction.

This assumes the distance between the 2 is constant (it is not)

[–]henbruas 11 points12 points ago

For anyone wondering, this is called the Lagrange point and there are actually several of them.

[–]dustinechos 2 points3 points ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

There are 5 of them. Apparently there are two asteroid fields in L-5 and L-6 of Jupiter. In The Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge some human explorers build a colony in the L-1 point between a planet and sky and spy on the natives on the planet.

[–]imtoooldforreddit 1 point2 points ago

The james webb will be put at a lagrange point in the earth-sun system. I added that distance to the op's pic

edit - I'd like to point out that everything is to scale except the size of the telescope

[–]dustinechos 0 points1 point ago

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. Do you know if they need to course correct stuff in the lagrange points occasionally? Wouldn't the pull of the other planets eventually knock it out of the point? It is a point after all.

[–]gerusz 1 point2 points ago

Gravitational force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. Of course they'll have to correct the course once in a while, but that's more because of the inaccuracy of the original placement than because of the gravitational pull of other planets.

[–]imtoooldforreddit 1 point2 points ago

so it will actually be orbiting the l2 point in a halo orbit.

The l2 point is semi stable - if it gets out of alignment in the same axis as it's orbit, it will be self correcting, but it will need some occasional correction in the direction perpendicular to its orbit as that axis is at an unstable equilibrium.

picture a baseball balanced on a saddle. it is at a stable equilibrium on one axis while at an unstable equilibrium on the other.

It will need some minimal correction to its orbit though, yes.

[–]imtoooldforreddit 1 point2 points ago

also, in case you're wondering why were putting it all the way out there.

the reasoning behind this placement is that the telescope is going to observe light that is from just after the big bang, and is therefor redshifted so far that it is waaay into the infrared. To keep the telescope from emitting its own infrared light in the same spectrum it is meant to observe, it is going to need to be kept very very cold, near absolute zero. It will be equipped with a sun shield the size of a tennis court to stop the sun from warming it up, but the earth and moon reflect enough light to be a problem as well. Keeping it at this point in space keeps the sun, earth, and moon all in the same direction at all times, allowing the sun shield to reflect light coming from all 3 objects. If it was just in an orbit around the earth, the telescope would often be between the sun and earth, making such shielding impossible.

[–]Infymus 2 points3 points ago

Fucking math when I'm trying to waste time on Reddit!

[–]aramid 0 points1 point ago

Really not sure how I overlooked this point, because it's exactly right. What you're thinking of is called a Lagrangian Point, and the one between the Earth and Moon is about 60,000 km from the surface of the Moon. I'm not going to try calculating an exact jump height, but it'd be safe to say you could make the jump if you were relatively close to the Lagrangian Point.

[–]UnclaimedUsername 0 points1 point ago

Which means you'd have to jump ~93% of the way to the moon before you start being pulled towards it. I'm surprised at how close to the moon the Lagrange point is! It'd be much easier to jump back, though.

[–]dlsspy 2 points3 points ago

I'm kind of bad at space, but at that distance, wouldn't there be other things pulling you a lot harder than the earth would be?

[–]aramid 5 points6 points ago

Almost certainly, but that's way harder to calculate.

[–]Aerocity 1 point2 points ago

No, only earth has gravity. That's how god made it.

Duh.

[–]mikesername 0 points1 point ago

just wanna make it clear that the ISS isn't just floating out there

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

You'd need to be at a lagrange point. The distance of these points above Earth's surface varies.

Ninja edit: The L1 point (which is located directly between the centers of mass of Earth and the Moon) is 323,110 km above Earth's surface. L1 isn't a stable point, so simply jumping towards the Moon would be enough to (eventually) reach it. It would take a while, though certainly not a lifetime. As soon as you started moving you would be in a very, very slow freefall towards the Moon. Eventually you'll be hauling ass.

[–]redworm 8 points9 points ago

And between your new white dot and the earth is where Apophis will travel in 2029.

[–]Jigsus 1 point2 points ago

So it should be one hell of a show. Being that close should make it visible to the naked eye

[–]hardwarequestions 1 point2 points ago

It's gonna be epic.

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

This is gonna sound lame, but one of my greatest dreams is that humans will have advanced space travel to the point that we could place Apophis into orbit around Earth. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

[–]IbanezHand 4 points5 points ago

I am so. Fucking. Pumped for that!

[–]rspeed 1 point2 points ago

JWST not to scale.

[–]ococody 0 points1 point ago

what?? Where is hubble?

[–]imtoooldforreddit 0 points1 point ago

Hubble is just in low earth orbit

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

Just to clarify, the white dot on there is 96x further off the earth than the ISS?

[–]vis-viva 2 points3 points ago

Right. Approximately.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

Christ, I had no idea. Thanks for that, just out of interest, is there any article online that you got that info from, I'd love to have a read.

[–]vis-viva 3 points4 points ago

GEO info.

I like how Wolfram Alpha handles the ISS info

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

Huge thanks, cheers.

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

At this resolution, ISS would look like it's sitting on Earth's surface.

[–]Sarria22 14 points15 points ago

Fun Fact, our moon is considered almost absurdly large in relation to the size of earth, compared to other planets out there.

[–]zoeypayne 5 points6 points ago

Absurdly? Charon is nearly double the size of our moon in relation to the host planet (or dwarf planet in this case)...

[–]JediExile 22 points23 points ago

Exactly. Pluto is not a planet. Charon is not a moon. It is a mass relay.

[–]Sarria22 5 points6 points ago

Basically a couple over sized asteroids in orbit around each other.

[–]PosiedonsSaltyAnus 0 points1 point ago

We need to get to mars ASAP so we can get some of dat prothean tech. I wanna go to the citedel and meet some asari

[–]TheGunshineState 9 points10 points ago

Hey man, no one gives a shit about Pluto anymore.

[–]nodnodwinkwink 4 points5 points ago

Who?

[–]somerandomguy1232 7 points8 points ago

Goofy's dog

[–]The_Batman_44 6 points7 points ago

gooby plz

[–]GreenTeam 4 points5 points ago

It always fucked me up that Goofy, a dog, owned a dog. Was Pluto his "special" brother or something?

[–]El_Josho 11 points12 points ago

Slavery.

[–]nodnodwinkwink 2 points3 points ago

Gotcha.

[–]RandomGuy5682 0 points1 point ago

Mickey's dog.

[–]AllegraGeller 3 points4 points ago

there are many people i'd call absurdly fat that are half the size of fatter people, and i like less than half of them half as well as they deserve

[–]Teraka 13 points14 points ago

Yesterday I once again tried to make a map of the solar system, to scale, in Blender. When I went far enough to have the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars inside my screen, the Sun was only a few millimeters wide.

That made me realize, once again, that we are one hundred and fifty million kilometers from the Sun. 150'000'000. The Earth's diameter is only a 10'000th of that.

And then, you realize that Neptune is more than 4 billion kilometers away. And that it's nothing compared to the closest star to our Sun.

The universe is a gigantic void.

[–]AllegraGeller 14 points15 points ago

The universe is a gigantic void.

try looking at the distances between the atoms/molecules in your hand (relative to their actual "size") for the full void experience

[–]Teraka 6 points7 points ago

Yeah I know, that's even more insane. We're composed of millions of particles that are all insanely far from each-other, yet we can touch and feel things. There is so much empty space in particles, and there is so much empty space in space, that if you compacted the whole universe such as all the elementary particles touched each-other, I doubt it would be bigger than a house.

We live in an amazing world.

[–]AllegraGeller 5 points6 points ago

that if you compacted the whole universe such as all the elementary particles touched each-other

That idea of "touching" isn't real, though, is it? I mean, there's "touching" through degeneracy pressure, and several assumed layers of collapse with it. Like neutron stars still have bulk, but the electrons and protons have collapsed into neutrons, and only the degeneracy pressure of those neutrons is capable of holding it all apart. So you could say that the protons and electrons aren't just touching anymore, they've merged. But then you've got black holes, which are like "fuck you pauli exclusion principle" and nothing is held apart anymore. They're all "touching" but only because they're literally inside each other. I don't think there's any known "cap" to how much matter can be in a black hole, right? So the whole universe could get shrunk to a point, not a house.

And if you arbitrarily wanted to use certain degenerate matter for your definition of "touching each other", you could end up with all sorts of sizes.

[–]Teraka 7 points8 points ago

They're all "touching" but only because they're literally inside each other.

I never thought of that. Since I watched the videos with Feynman talking about stuff, I understand that the electromagnetic force of the particles prevents a solid from going through another (or something like that), but until now I always assumed that the elementary particles were themselves solids. But now that I think about it, why would they be ? What if they were only entities, virtual concepts with mass, which makes them attract each other, resulting in the entire universe ? And now that I think about it, what is mass anyways ? How can something attract something else that is billions of kilometers away ?

I think my favorite feeling ever is realizing how little I know about the world I live in, and how I am even able to type this. Also, what of that ? What of the amazing level of complexity involved in me typing this for other people to read ? That means intelligent beings, that developed a complex way of communicating, translated it into something visual, then developed machines that uses electricity going through certain circuits and not others to achieve various goals, in which you enter your message through complex hand movements and a wonderful plastic device, for your message to be converted into electric impulses, which will then be sent through cables and radio waves, onto another machine, which will stock it and send it back to whomever wants it, to be then interpreted by yet another machine, reconverted into a message, then displayed through a device that I don't have a clue how it works, for the remote human to read and interpret as the idea I was originally trying to convey.

Okay, I think that's the definition of getting carried away. You got the point. The world is amazing and all the people who don't realize this really miss on something.

[–]SamFlynn2012 1 point2 points ago

You and I ought to get high some time!

[–]Teraka 0 points1 point ago

Heh. Seeing how I'm already kinda like that naturally, I wonder what effect it would have on me... I'll probably end up trying it some time, just to see.

[–]helgaofthenorth 2 points3 points ago

[–]ZeroKrysis 1 point2 points ago

Damn daddy.

[–]TheGayRoommate 1 point2 points ago

What if we're inside an atom D=

[–]AllegraGeller 0 points1 point ago

what if an atom is inside us

[–]ohwai 4 points5 points ago

At 30,000 km per second it would [will] take nearly 50 years of transit time to get to the nearest star not our own. The fastest vehicle we've yet made [Voyager 2] currently and for about the next 80,000 years is doing about 13 km/sec.

[–]PosiedonsSaltyAnus 1 point2 points ago

That's really fast. How did we get it going that fast?

[–]ohwai 1 point2 points ago

The gravitational slingshot effects during its flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

[–]PosiedonsSaltyAnus 0 points1 point ago

Oh that pretty cool.

[–]Teraka 0 points1 point ago

Yup, it's already in my favorites :)

It's just as amazing as every other time I watched it. And I still don't know if I'm more impressed by the size of what we see, or by the fact that we managed to see it from our tiny blue rock.

[–]kgram 0 points1 point ago

You should try Universe Sandbox. The distances really seems insane sometimes. For instance, if you zoom out far enough to see all of Jupiters moon, you can't tell which one's Jupiter (when things gets too small to see they are just drawn as dots).

Trying to zoom enough to make earth look like an orb makes me wonder if my scrollwheel is still working.

[–]chka 0 points1 point ago

Our Sun is so huge (or light is so slow) that it takes light 4.6 seconds to travel the same distance as the diameter of the Sun.

[–]xanthrax33 9 points10 points ago

Pfft. I can jump that far.

[–]Lewy_H 2 points3 points ago

I can already imagine this being on the back of Virgin Galactic passenger seats with a little shuttle slowly getting closer to the moon.

[–]imtoooldforreddit 2 points3 points ago

I added the future position of the james webb

For those that didn't know, it will be at a lagrange point in the earth - sun system instead of simply orbiting the earth like Hubble.

edit - the reasoning behind this placement is that the telescope is going to observe light that is from just after the big bang, and is such redshifted so far that it is waaay into the infrared. To keep the telescope from emitting its own infrared light in the same spectrum, it is going to need to be kept very very cold. It will be equipped with a sun shield the size of a tennis court to stop the sun from warming it up, but the earth and moon reflect enough light to be a problem as well. Keeping it at this point in space keeps the sun, earth, and moon all in the same direction at all times, allowing the sun shield to reflect light coming from all 3 objects. If it was just in an orbit around the earth, the telescope would often be between the sun and earth, making such shielding impossible.

[–]TheTick96 2 points3 points ago

That's no moon...

[–]peanutbuttermayhem 7 points8 points ago

Why is this a gif?

[–]milomilo 36 points37 points ago

because the gif format is more efficient for storing large contiguous areas of solid color. jpeg is superior when dealing with photos.

[–]MadeOfStarStuff 14 points15 points ago

TIL

[–]cr42yr1ch 5 points6 points ago

And the png format is superior than gif for storing large areas of solid colour (so long as the png is 8-bit colour like all* gifs are limited to).

*with some very specialised coding trick exceptions

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

Perhaps he was wondering why it isn't PNG, as it's far more efficient than GIF. :3

But seriously, I took the original image and losslessly optimized it. The resulting file size was 1320 bytes. I then converted it to PNG and optimized again. The result was 860 bytes. That's a 35% size reduction, and no change in image quality.

Think of all the bandwidth they'd save.

[–]whatwereyouthinking 11 points12 points ago

gifs are cheaper. we're still in a recession you know.

[–]SlappysRevenge 2 points3 points ago

My initial reaction to clicking the picture... http://imgur.com/PtdYC

[–]chka 0 points1 point ago

Wait for it...

[–]RetroRocker 5 points6 points ago

Why is it that every film/game ever seems to get this wrong? The number of times I've seen the Moon and the Earth in focus in the same shot, jeez.

[–]Leejin 3 points4 points ago

It's weird to think that that white speck is moving trillions of gallons of ocean water constantly!!!! Wow..

[–]DoctorHeadshot 1 point2 points ago

I guess I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon

[–]SeriousMoad 1 point2 points ago

Skimmed through the comments and saw nothing like this, so I'm hoping someone else out there is wondering the same thing: why does the moon appear so much larger to us? It seems like it would be significantly smaller in the sky, but it's huge at times.

[–]Strid3r21 0 points1 point ago

It appears much larger to us humans because the moon is much larger than us humans. Jk, I don't know.

[–]caducus 1 point2 points ago

Can someone show me another graphic that shows how far other orbits are from the earth? On this one how far away would our higher satellites be? I assume that the lower earth ones wouldn't even register on this and I wouldn't be surprised if the highest ones didn't either.

I guess I just have no idea what those "elevations" look like in comparison to... everything.

[–]zoeypayne 3 points4 points ago

In perspective, if the earth was a basketball and the moon a tennis ball, the distance would be roughly 21 feet. Yes, I watch The Universe too.

[–]All-American-Bot 1 point2 points ago

(For our friends outside the USA... 21 feet -> 6.4 m) - Yeehaw!

[–]zoeypayne 0 points1 point ago

And for others interested in a non decimal measurement... 14 cubits.

[–]rofldoctor 2 points3 points ago

That's like 4 inches tops.

[–]TheDrunkenGod -1 points0 points ago

That's what she said.

[–]Catanman 1 point2 points ago

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

For some reason this made me a little sad. After all the endeavours we've sent out there, all the satellites, probes and shuttles; we haven't gotten that far in terms of regular transit. We've got such a long way to go.

[–]jamesave 1 point2 points ago

how do you take the pic?

[–]pleomax123 0 points1 point ago

Upvote for you

[–]Drathanas 1 point2 points ago

Does anyone have a high res version of this picture? It would make a sweet desktop image

[–]earlyworm 1 point2 points ago

Higher res version is at http://traipse.com/earth_and_moon/

[–]aramid 0 points1 point ago

I wanted the same thing, so I made one.

[–]my_account_is_new 1 point2 points ago

you got to respect gravity, such a massive distance and still attracting that body toward Earth...

[–]BODYBUTCHER 0 points1 point ago

actually the moon is slowly moving away from the earth.

[–]my_account_is_new 0 points1 point ago

how long till we will not see the moon in our sky?

[–]BODYBUTCHER 0 points1 point ago

in a very long time my child, longer than many of our lives combined.

[–]ZimbaZumba 0 points1 point ago

Cool, ty.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

Or .0000000125 parsecs.

[–]only_uses_expletives 0 points1 point ago

i st there for several seconds waiting for something to happen, then i realized its a pic not a gif... DOH

[–]ahlph 0 points1 point ago

Ahh it's a gif and it doesn't move. The pain of never knowing if it will eventually move.

[–]cagedit 0 points1 point ago

Can someone explain why it looks so much closer? Preferably Neil deGrasse Tyson?

[–]Fig1024 0 points1 point ago

I find it interesting that even with such great distance and relative small size, the moon has enough gravity to cause the tides go up and down on earth.

I think things would be a lot more interesting if the moon was at just 1/3 of the current distance

[–]johnclarkbadass 0 points1 point ago

Who took that picture

[–]Athene_Wins 0 points1 point ago

That's a mindfuck. Thought they were way closer.

[–]w3sticles 0 points1 point ago

As much as I see stuff like this, My brain will never be able to process it or work it out. How can the moon look so close, but actually be that far away?

And don't even get me started on the sun.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

It's not that far relative to the size of the earth. If the earth could walk, then it would only be a few paces away.

[–]degoban 0 points1 point ago

Can we get it closer?

[–]M0b1u5 0 points1 point ago

I always remember it is "30 x Earth Diameter = moon distance".

So if someone gives you a basketball and asks to show you where the moon is: move 30 feet away and hold up your hand.

[–]comfortableenough 0 points1 point ago

Oh hey! That's not that far at all!

[–]Ktmouse 0 points1 point ago

Kerbal Space Program made this fact abundantly clear.

[–]rspeed 0 points1 point ago

The distance in KSP is actually much closer. Kerbin is also much smaller than Earth and the Mün is much smaller than the Moon.

Body Diameter (km) Orbital Altitude (km)
Earth 12,756 N/A
Kerbin 1,200 N/A
Moon 3,476 384,399
Mün 400 12,000

So the Earth:Moon diameter ratio is about 11:3, and Kerbin:Mün is exactly 9:3. They're roughly comparable.

The Moon:Mün diameter ratio is 26:3, but their orbit ratio is 96:3. That means if you scaled up the Kerbin/Mün system to Earth/Moon size, the Mün would be less than 1/3 the distance from the planet's surface.

Goddamn, that's scary.

Edit: I'd been wondering why the Mün looked so much larger from Kerbin's surface than the Moon does IRL. Now I know!

[–]Ktmouse 0 points1 point ago

And its still hard as fuck to hit!

[–]hosebeats 0 points1 point ago

This belongs in /r/woahdude

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

Every time I focus on one the other starts to move, what is this?!

[–]JewBear3 0 points1 point ago

I loved this.

[–]sneerpeer 0 points1 point ago

Is it possible to triangulate this picture? How far away is the point of view?

[–]ilovemysneakers 0 points1 point ago

so the moons like 6 inches away....thats cool!

[–]MrPrestige 0 points1 point ago

As Indy would say, "Damn , I thought that was closer!!"

[–]arbitrary516 0 points1 point ago

From the size in the sky I imagined it would be at least 1/5 the distance portrayed here, mind blown.

[–]Hyperion1144 0 points1 point ago

I honestly would have guessed it would be much further.

[–]notenoughroom 0 points1 point ago

This hurts my brain.

[–]phoenix25 0 points1 point ago

I don't know why, but I always assumed it was so much closer. Like just outside our atmosphere or something. Thanks for putting this into perspective for me.

[–]skinnywhitemale 0 points1 point ago

works great as a desktop wallpaper

[–]Colorado87 0 points1 point ago

Another crazy thing about our solar system: Imagine the sun as a grapefruit. Earth is 15 meters away, the size of the point of a pin.

[–]deeptime 0 points1 point ago

I would be able to contemplate this picture much more calmly if it was not a gif.

[–]TeCuervo 0 points1 point ago

That's between 4 and 5 inches. That's not too bad. I don't see why NASA had to go and spend all that money.

[–]ImClever 0 points1 point ago

Holy shit we landed on that thing.

[–]appel 0 points1 point ago

[–]mr_luxury_yacht 0 points1 point ago

Distance of earth to moon (406700 km) / Diameter of earth (12756 km) = 31.88 earths

Meh, close enough.

[–]awesomechemist 1 point2 points ago

For those of us with OCD...

There are 33 earths in this picture.

[–]mr_luxury_yacht 4 points5 points ago

But 32 between the earth and the moon.