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On YT there is a video of a flight through the solar system at the speed of light starting at the Sun. It's a pretty boring video. You see very little movement

On YT there is a video of a flight through the solar system at the speed of light starting at the Sun. It's a pretty boring video. You see very little movement and change over time. After 8 minutes Earth slowly passes by. After 44 minutes you reach Jupiter and the video ends.

shagie 25d ago
If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel (A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system) https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsys... has a button at the bottom right for 'C' which scrolls to the right at the speed of light on that scale. https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10000000&table=y&map=n&us=y&stars=y&light=y https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10... lets you make scale model calculations (useful if you're building one). The default model scale has the speed of light at 67.06 mi/h (107.9 km/h). This puts Earth out at 14.16 miles and Alpha Centauri at 2,581,000 miles away. I personally like the "Sun is 5 inches" scale because that puts the speed of light at 323.1 ft/h (10x garden snail speed) which is 1.46 miles/day... because that puts Alpha Centauri at 2,354 miles away... which is a conceivable distance. If you go to a scale of the sun being 500 inches (about 110000000) and the speed of light is 6 mph, Alpha Centauri is 234,600 miles away - the distance to the moon. It also lists the scale distance to the center of the Milky Way 1,327,000,000 miles) and Andromeda (137,400,000,000 miles) which are in the unconceivable range.
- sh0gg0the 24d ago
  Does this take relativistic effects into account? The video I mentioned doesn't. Near the speed of light your surrounding looks like sped up and the distance to your target is clinched. Your own time runs slower in comparison and the distance is shorter. So theoretically you're able to reach the destination millions of LY away in your lifetime. Edit: I now watched the animation. It's exactly the same as the YT video. Speed of light is very, very slow.
- petersumskas 23d ago
  In Australia there is a scale model of the Solar System where the sun is the main dome of Siding Springs observatory and the planets are on billboards at scale size and distance. Pluto is several hundred kilometres away (and the size of a tennis ball on the billboard) This discussion has made me wonder what it would look like to have a different scale where the distances are based on the “speed limit” (which is mostly 100km/hr)…so that earth, for example, would be 8min from the Sun. Neptune or Pluto would be 4 - 7 hours away. It would still fit in Australia but be significantly larger.
  - shagie 23d ago
    The 10,000,000,000 (1 : 10B) scale would be kind of neat for Australia. Six soccer fields in Sydney and you've got the Sun to Pluto. One soccer field holds the Sun to Jupiter.... Alpha Centauri is in Perth. The speed of light is 100 meters / hour. https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10000000000&table=y&map=n&stars=y&light=y https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10...

shagie 25d ago

If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel (A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system) https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsys... has a button at the bottom right for 'C' which scrolls to the right at the speed of light on that scale. https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10000000&table=y&map=n&us=y&stars=y&light=y https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10... lets you make scale model calculations (useful if you're building one). The default model scale has the speed of light at 67.06 mi/h (107.9 km/h). This puts Earth out at 14.16 miles and Alpha Centauri at 2,581,000 miles away. I personally like the "Sun is 5 inches" scale because that puts the speed of light at 323.1 ft/h (10x garden snail speed) which is 1.46 miles/day... because that puts Alpha Centauri at 2,354 miles away... which is a conceivable distance. If you go to a scale of the sun being 500 inches (about 110000000) and the speed of light is 6 mph, Alpha Centauri is 234,600 miles away - the distance to the moon. It also lists the scale distance to the center of the Milky Way 1,327,000,000 miles) and Andromeda (137,400,000,000 miles) which are in the unconceivable range.

sh0gg0the 24d ago
Does this take relativistic effects into account? The video I mentioned doesn't. Near the speed of light your surrounding looks like sped up and the distance to your target is clinched. Your own time runs slower in comparison and the distance is shorter. So theoretically you're able to reach the destination millions of LY away in your lifetime. Edit: I now watched the animation. It's exactly the same as the YT video. Speed of light is very, very slow.
petersumskas 23d ago
In Australia there is a scale model of the Solar System where the sun is the main dome of Siding Springs observatory and the planets are on billboards at scale size and distance. Pluto is several hundred kilometres away (and the size of a tennis ball on the billboard) This discussion has made me wonder what it would look like to have a different scale where the distances are based on the “speed limit” (which is mostly 100km/hr)…so that earth, for example, would be 8min from the Sun. Neptune or Pluto would be 4 - 7 hours away. It would still fit in Australia but be significantly larger.
- shagie 23d ago
  The 10,000,000,000 (1 : 10B) scale would be kind of neat for Australia. Six soccer fields in Sydney and you've got the Sun to Pluto. One soccer field holds the Sun to Jupiter.... Alpha Centauri is in Perth. The speed of light is 100 meters / hour. https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10000000000&table=y&map=n&stars=y&light=y https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10...