8 ms·
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel (2014)
- _Microft 5y agoThis one is really driving home the scale of the solar system. Another amazing visualization of distances is the video "Powers of Ten" that goes to the largest and smallest distances. It was filmed in 1977 already but that only adds to its charme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
- thangalin 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEHCCsFFIuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEHCCsFFIuY Star Size Comparison 3 is jaw-dropping. The reversal at the end is mesmerizing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ctdonath 5y agoHad my daughter make a scaled model of the solar system, radius of 1km: https://youtu.be/-fPm5mj0Bhg https://youtu.be/-fPm5mj0Bhg
- dang 5y agoMany previous submissions, but the meaningful threads appear to be: If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21735528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21735528 - Dec 2019 (82 comments) If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13790954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13790954 - March 2017 (81 comments) If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217129 - Dec 2016 (11 comments) If the Moon Was Only 1 Pixel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038584 - July 2016 (4 comments) If the moon were only 1 pixel: a scale model of the solar system - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7551423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7551423 - April 2014 (17 comments) If The Moon Was Only 1 Pixel - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7341690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7341690 - March 2014 (178 comments)
- willemlabu 5y agoYeah, wow! 27 submissions altogether. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=joshworth.com%2Fdev%2Fpixelspace%2Fpixelspace_solarsystem.html https://hn.algolia.com/?query=joshworth.com%2Fdev%2Fpixelspa...
- FridayoLeary 5y agoIt is pretty interesting. I once clicked a link here provided by the man himself.
- galaktor 5y agoThis reminds me of the "Universe in a Nutshell" app which also attempts to visualise the various scales of the universe. https://shop-us.kurzgesagt.org/products/universe-in-a-nutshell-app?userselect=1 https://shop-us.kurzgesagt.org/products/universe-in-a-nutshe...
- hotpxl 5y agoThe scale is pretty accurate and all, but why is there giant text in space?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- classified 5y agoRelocated space trash from Earth‘s sattelites, neatly arranged.
- levi_n 5y agoLove the Female/Male symbols for Venus and Mars, nice touch
- Kaibeezy 5y agoUm. Are those not the standard symbols?
- dasyatidprime 5y agoThey are indeed the standard symbols for those planets, and they do also coincide with the gender symbols, presumably because of the way the associations played out in classical mythology. Fun extra fact: in Western alchemy, the symbols for major solar system objects ("planets", even though not all of them are planets by the modern astronomical definition) were also used to represent metals. Except HN seems to delete the symbols when I try to post them, so you'll have to look them up yourself, I guess!
- Nohortax 5y agoI'd like to knock up a solar system in a right scale and I wondered how can I do that. Now that I see this article I think I just can't, not in a regular room at least. I guess I will not have my solar system in an accurate scale hung on my ceiling. Too bad
- zamadatix 5y agoIt's a fun thing for a walking/biking trail near you if you can get park permission though!
- drno123 5y agoWe have one scattered in our city: https://theadventourist.com/solar-system-zagreb-croatia https://theadventourist.com/solar-system-zagreb-croatia
- overlordalex 5y agoThere is also the famous one starting in Stockholm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System
- DemocracyFTW 5y agoand one on a German island: http://www.sternwarte-norderney.de/planetenlehrpfad.html http://www.sternwarte-norderney.de/planetenlehrpfad.html
- petters 5y agoSee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System for a very large scale model of the solar system.
- papa-whisky 5y agoVery neat, I'd never heard of this! Here in Melbourne we have a much smaller version set out along a ~6km walk by the bay: https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/media/svodom2p/solar-system-trail-mobile-friendly-version.pdf https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/media/svodom2p/solar-syst...
- sumedh 5y agoThanks, will check it out next weekend.
- IncRnd 5y agoIt's somewhat interesting that I was the happiest with Pluto being shown.
- thangalin 5y agoHere's my 3D render of a solar system grand tour that uses time to show the enormity of distances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0JMaM_tdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0JMaM_tdQ
- dundarious 5y agoThanks. I love almost any use of Michael Nyman's music, and feel compelled to recommend watching Peter Greenaway's film "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover," where a different arrangement and orchestra plays the same piece for a pivotal scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSFVdQQwhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WSFVdQQwhc
- ammar_x 5y agoThis website is a great example for me of useful, interesting, and original things that can be done on the Internet, instead of the abundant nonsense. Hope there was list of these websites.
- canadianfella 5y agoHope there was?
- ant6n 5y agoI hope there was a search engine.
- rozab 5y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/top/ https://old.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/top/
- tabtab 5y agoI don't know, the UI seems screwed up to me. They should have scrolled vertically, for one. It's more natural to people and mice design.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoTtuly horrifying
- IndySun 5y agohttp://exoplanetapp.com/ http://exoplanetapp.com/
- krilnon 5y agoGlad to see this showing up every few years. After its initial launch, I think I helped the creator add the localization and lightspeed features: https://joshworth.com/updates-to-the-solar-system-map/ https://joshworth.com/updates-to-the-solar-system-map/ ...and we eventually met up and had lunch.
- fouc 5y agoI noticed the new light speed feature.. Shockingly slow compared to scrolling, really drives it home.
- dclowd9901 5y agoUtterly depressing tbh
- pjerem 5y agoThis is an amazing feature. It really shows how much we are stuck on our little blue pixels heap and how even getting to even Mars is an exploit.
- alphabet9000 5y agoI remember seeing this page back in the day and always thought it was really funny how it describes itself as being 'A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system' - you scroll over a bit and it points to "1 Pixel" for scale - but the "pixel" it points to is actually two pixels [0]. [0] https://i.jollo.org/MZosAzpl.png https://i.jollo.org/MZosAzpl.png
- supurbly 5y agoThat could just be your client trying to handle a pixel-sized thing that isn't exactly aligned to your display's pixel grid.
- JoshTko 5y agoThis is one of the few tools that really gives a good sense of the relative scale of the solar system.
- keithnz 5y agoIt's a good thing as we get more high res monitors the solar system is going to shrink. This would have been much much worse back on my Atari800xl
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mark-r 5y ago"Tedious" is right. Must have been designed for a phone, because on my desktop I gave up scrolling before I got to the first planet.
- fouc 5y agoside scrolling is really fast with a trackpad
- industriousthou 5y agoI clicked on the scroll bar to zoom through. Still pretty tedious, but I got the end.
- phaemon 5y agoYou can hold down the right-arrow key to scroll, and you reach Mercury in 12 seconds.
- vanillacupcake 5y agoMasterful copy, a feature many leave as an after thought but one of the slickest levers for user delight. Bravo 1 pixel moon man
- blakewatson 5y agoI was just looking at this site earlier today independently of HN. I revisit it several times a year, mainly because I can’t get enough "scale of the universe" comparisons (if you know any good ones, please send them my way). I especially love the light speed auto-scroll because it does a great job of visualizing just how slow the speed of light is (or how vast space is).
- wruza 5y agoc is relatively slow Only from our point of view. Photons have zero travel time from their perspective (thanks to Einstein). When you go with different speeds, approaching c, you see different distances (and things), and with just 1g acceleration, the same that pulls you down right now, you can go to the stars, galaxies and… well, just watch yourself: https://youtube.com/watch?v=b_TkFhj9mgk https://youtube.com/watch?v=b_TkFhj9mgk (30min)
- geenew 5y agoMy god, it's full of pithy remarks!
- amake 5y agoIf you like to scroll vertically instead of horizontally, you might like this one that takes you to the bottom of the ocean: https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ https://neal.fun/deep-sea/
- _hao 5y agoOne of my favorite documentaries ever uses the same concept - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIxAPFYDsnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIxAPFYDsnQ
- v-yadli 5y agoNow that the moon is only 1px. Imagine all the super massive 40pt text staring at you from space.
- js8 5y agoIf you scroll all the way to the bottom, you will indeed see Uranus.
- hawski 5y agoIt would be interesting to see a little indicator of how fast your scrolling speed is in terms of speed of light.
- speakeron 5y agoOn my screen, it's taking about 4s to scroll one light minute (15 times light speed). So if the map extended all the way to Proxima Centauri, it would take over 3 months of continuous scrolling to get there.
- danparsonson 5y agoClick the little 'C' icon in the bottom right and it will start automatically scrolling at the speed of light (which, spoiler alert, turns out to be pretty slow)
- blowski 5y agoDiscussed this with my non-programmer, slightly claustrophobic wife. Thinking about the vastness of space terrifies her, and she feels the same about the vastness of the internet and software. I'd never thought of a codebase as occupying that same kind of physical vastness before.
- grlass 5y agoOne of the most compelling short VR experiences I've tried is Titans of Space PLUS, which gives a tour around the solar system, and then compares our sun to other stars. The sense of scale when you have depth and head movement had me quaking at a few moments.
- teddyh 5y ago> 1 pixel → · = 3474.8 km ← The diameter of the moon This seems wrong to me. Would not using area instead of diameter (squaring the circle, as it were) yield a more correct-looking result? As in, the area of one pixel should equal the apparent two-dimensional area of the moon.
- shawabawa3 5y agodoes it matter when everything displayed is very closely approximated by a circle?
- k_ 5y agoSeems fine to me given the main objective here is to show distances, not size of things.
- isolli 5y agoIt reminds me of this quote from Feynman [0]: "The next question was — what makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward." It's easy to take a lot of things for granted, but it's amazing that gravity pulls from such a phenomenal distance. [0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman