Another Universe question

[N8CYL]

To help a simpleton like me get a handle on the size of the universe, if the sun was the size of a grain of sand, how big would the known universe be?

[N8CYL]

RobDickinson said:

scorp said:

1,400,000 km isn't that big at all, you mean light years ?

Nope. If you scale the sun to a 1mm grain of sand the milky way would be 1,400,000km diameter.

The universe is somewhat larger.

people find it hard to grasp the size of even our solar system and sun let alone the galaxy/universe.

If you had a space ship that went the speed of light you would still die a long time before seeing more than a handful of other stars. Crossing our galaxy alone would take 100,000 years. Ignoring silly time compression relativity issues...

Crikey, and there are billions of galaxies, billions of light years apart, there's me thinking the size of the moons orbit would be about right.

[N8CYL]

IvanSTi said:

N8CYL - this was a nice link posted not long ago when trying to comprehend how long forever is, ie how long religious people want to live in the afterlife.

Part of it gives you an idea of how big the known universe is.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-numb...

Not seen this before, its mind blowing really, but well written. Its also amazing that in some ways we are so small in respect to the vastness of space but also so big in the minuscule world of atomic particles.

[N8CYL]

IvanSTi said:

N8CYL said:

To help a simpleton like me get a handle on the size of the universe, if the sun was the size of a grain of sand, how big would the known universe be?

N8CYL - this was a nice link posted not long ago when trying to comprehend how long forever is, ie how long religious people want to live in the afterlife.

Part of it gives you an idea of how big the known universe is.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-numb...

The fact about atoms in a grain of salt is mind blowing.