How BIG is the Universe A Photographic Tour

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How BIG is the Universe?A Photographic Tour
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Apollo 17 Lunar Rover(scale a few metres)
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Space Shuttle, Columbia(scale 100 metres)
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Barringer Crater, Arizona(1.2 km diam, 200 m
deep - 50 m diam asteroid at 11 km/s)
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Earth(diam 12,756 km)
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Cloud covered Venus(0.95 Earth diameters)
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Mercury(0.38 Earth diameters)
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The Moon(0.27 Earth diameters)
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The Sun(diam 1 392 000 km or 109 Earth
diameters,distance 150 000 000 km or 1
astronomical unit - 1 AU)
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Eclipse of the Sun by the Moon as seen from
Antarctica(both subtend almost exactly the same
angle of half a degree at the Earth)
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Mars - the Red Planet(0.53 Earth diam)
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Surface of Mars
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Phobos and Deimos(max lengths 28 and 16 km)
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Orbits of the planets to scale
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Asteroid Gaspra(20 km long)
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Jupiter and its Great Red Spot (11.2 Earth
diam,distance 5.2 AU)
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Jupiters cloud belts as seen by the Cassini
spacecraft
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Jupiter with (top to bottom)Io, Europa, Ganymede
and Callisto
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Io and its sulphur volcanoes(0.28 Earth diam,
1.04 Moon diam)
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Ganymede, largest moonin the Solar System
(0.41 Earth diam,1.51 Moon diam)
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Not all Jupiters moons are largeThebe (100
km), Amalthea (270 km max) and Metis (40 km)
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Saturn and its beautiful rings(9.4 Earth diam at
9.6 AU)
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Orbits of the planets to scale
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Uranus, the tilted planet(4.0 Earth diamat 19.2
AU)
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Neptune(3.9 Earth diamat 30.1 AU)
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Pluto and Charon - double planet(0.18 and 0.09
Earth diam1.54 Earth diam apartat 29.7 to 49.4
AU from Sun)
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Comet Hale-Bopp in March 1997A comet tail can
be over 1 AU long,but its nucleus measures only
a few km across
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Comet Halley and the Milky Way
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Southern Pinwheel Galaxy 15 million light years
away and similar to the Milky Way
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How the Milky Way might look seen edge-on
Sun
160 million light years
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Size of the Milky Way Galaxy
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Sombrero Galaxy
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Whirlpool Galaxy
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Andromeda Galaxy(2.5 million light years away
-most distant naked eye object)
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Giant Elliptical Galaxy M87in Virgo Cluster50
million light years away
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Virgo Cluster of Galaxies1500 galaxies9 million
light years across50 million light years away
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ComaCluster
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Hubble Deep Field showing galaxies over 10
billion light years away (looking back in time to
near the beginning of the universe)
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How the Milky Way might look seen edge-on
Sun
160 million light years
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The Milky Way as seen from Australia(Notice the
pink nebulae where new stars are forming)
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Milky Way with Faulkes Telescope in Australia in
foreground
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The constellation of Orionand the Milky Way(The
bright stars we see here are no more than a few
hundred light years away)
Betelgeuse
Rigel
OrionNebula
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Orion Nebulaa small star forming region about 1
light year across
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New solar systems forming in Orion
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New stars forming in pillars of molecular
hydrogen and dust that are light years in length
(in Eagle Nebula)
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Pleiades and Hyadesstar clusters(with Jupiter
and Saturn)
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Betelgeuse - a Red Supergiant star(big enough to
reach the orbit of Jupiter)
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Life Cyclesof Stars in Outline
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Helix Planetary Nebula (1.5 light years across)
White dwarf star(remains of core of star and
about size of the Earth)
Planetary nebula(remains of outer layers of
star)
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Cats Eye Planetary Nebula and white dwarf(A
solar mass white dwarf would be only as big as
the Earth)
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Cocoon Planetary Nebula
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Ring Planetary Nebula
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Abell Planetary Nebula
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Crab Nebula a supernova remnant - remains of a
star that exploded10 light years across
neutron star about 10 kmacross is at centre (not
visible)
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Vela or GumNebula
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A Black Hole(Radius of a 10 solar mass black
hole would be only 30 km)
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A black hole a few million times the mass of the
Sun lurks at the centre of our galaxy and causes
nearby stars to orbit very rapidly
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How Orion would look if you were near a black
hole (computer simulation)
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Gravitational lensing by a galaxy cluster 2
billion light years away bends light from a
galaxy so far away that its light has been
travelling for 95 of the age of the Universe
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The End