This is pretty cool.

[styley]

Way to make one feel insignificant.
"http://www.howbigistheworld.com/"

[ll_billym]

I'm sure I can see my house on that last one.

[nightmare]

what would make an even more mind boggling illustration of our insignificance would be to show relative distances to other stars, sizes of galaxies and distances to them.
Unfortunately, the scaling is just too enormous to easily demonstrate (before anyone has a go at me, yes, I know I have just split an infinitive)

[mibn2cweus]

Just imagine how Antares feels tonight being usurped by Jupiter and our puny Moon from a wee little Earthlings vantage point

[China Doll]

I don't understand Mibs :0( (And I did look at the picture).

[Llamatron]

Even with those pictures I just can't properly get my head around it. The size of the universe just boggles the mind.

[Loosehead]

i think, China , That mibn is saying that as huge as Antares is, to us viewing from Earth it is out done by the moon and Jupiter due to the close proximity of the latter two bodies.

[mibn2cweus]

For one thing I thought some one might actually like to have a look at the 'monster', therefore the map.

If you should be graced with a clear sky in the next few evenings and having had a gander (the Moon will have move to the East) you might find some comfort in considering the fact that we can see Antares (and have some knowledge of its existence) but it can't see us. I know between little old me and big old Antares which I'd rather be, even if only for a short while.

[China Doll]

Ah. Now I get ya. Cheers!

[nutgoneflake]

Thanks Styley - I've bookmarked that for my boys who just declared it 'cool' indeed! We were going to make some planets in the hols and now we can colour and size them properly too.

I feel quite tiny now, and am going to go and ponder stuff.....xx

[Gromit]

mibn2cweus,

"Antares can't see us."

Well maybe not in the visible spectrum that the human eye can process, but maybe the Antaresians view in a different part of the spectrum or if they can 'see' for example Radiowaves, we must put out some interesting ones.

Or what if the Antaresians have very big eyes - and lots of 'em?

[mibn2cweus]

Gromit, Thanks for opening our eyes to new possibilities. Sweet dreams everyone!