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  1. My initial comment disappeared for some reason. It was up there with Noel Gallagher for insight and profundity as well.

    Please feel free to post something reflective or informative, if you fancy

  9. I think I might have posted previously about Mercury being the nearest planet to Earth, most of the time. Also, get this, Mercury is also the closest planet to every other planet.

    If the planets are all lined up, then the order we know to be true is fine. It’s just that the planets hardly ever line up so neatly, so Mercury being quite close to the sun and whizzing around it every 88 days, is more often than not the only other planet between us and the Sun.

      • I watched the video with the sound off but I’m wondering if they considered making the Sun and the Planet models relative to their size. I suspect this would end up with the Sun being the size of a building and Earth the size of a pea.

        • That is exactly what they did and the reason for the video. All images of the solar system are way out of scale because on a page all the planets on it would be invisible dots. You need a canvas that big to see ’em.

          Standing in the Earth’s orbit as depicted in the vid, their “Sun” is exactly the same size as the real one appears to be from our actual orbit. Their Sun is 1.5m across, and the Earth is the size of a marble 😎

  11. On the eve of a new football season, always remember it’s the taking part that counts, and I mean that most sincerely.

    This goes out to everyone, especially Tottenham fans.

  12. That’s a lovely presentation of the solar system, MC, expecially to see the lighted orbits moving.

    The scale of the solar system is something that has become familiar to me over the last 20 years living in Bonn, as I cycle each day to work down the Rhine. A scale model of the solar system (Planetenlehrpfad) is placed there from the sun near the old German parliament, to Pluto, 6 km north of there. Here is a 17 minute videoed cycle ride along the route, complete with cheesy bontempi-style background music to set your teeth on edge

    Although sadly I couldn’t find any examples listed for the UK, there are many planet paths across Europe, not least in Germany.

    • Interesting, thanks Sal.

      There’s some stunning videos about the size of the universe, and I remember a jaw-dropping one comparing the sizes of stars (clue: the Sun is tiny compared to some out there like Rigel, even though it’s just objectively enormous).

      • In the 70s comedy Porridge, the young inmate Godber (played by Richard Beckinsale) sets up various pieces of fruit which represent the sun, the earth and the moon. He then asks Fletch and several other lags where they think the nearest star would be.

        Most people say in the kitchen or down the hallway, but Fletch is older and wiser and declares it’ll be outside in the car park or in town.

        Godber says “Johannesburg”.

        • Because I am a sad former physicist I put a distance scale model of the solar system in my son’s bedroom. All the planets were obviously too big, but still.
          On that scale the nearest star was at my mates house 30 miles away….

      • I think there’s a Long Now Foundation talk about the fact that it’s physically impossible for human beings ever to leave the solar system, the distance being, um, astronomically enormous.

        • Wouldn’t necessarily bet on that statement being correct, considering it alongside a possible thousand or few years of technical advances.
          Whether it would ultimately be worth doing is another thing.

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