Showing how big space is - Earth moon, basket ball tennis ball example

NeilF

NeilF
I was talking to the kids about how big space is, and used the old if the earth is a basket ball (or football) and the moon is a tennis ball example with them.

If you're not familiar with this, give someone the two balls and ask them to hold/put them far enough apart to represent the real earth/moon to scale.

Most people will hold them at arms length or less. In fact the tennis ball needs to be about 7 or 8 meters away!

When people then show disbelief in this, the way to prove it is simple, as I did the other night with the kids. When the moon is out and low in the sky, hold a tennis ball up in the air about 7-8 meters away from them so they can see the tennis ball and the moon next to/over each other. Voila! They are the same size!

Got a nice "ohhhhhhhh" from this one with the kids :)
 

trekman

trekman
Better still just get them to watch an old British sitcom from the 70's called Porridge where this was demonstrated :p
 

Comrade Napoleon

Comrade Napoleon
NeilF said:
I was talking to the kids about how big space is, and used the old if the earth is a basket ball (or football) and the moon is a tennis ball example with them.

If you're not familiar with this, give someone the two balls and ask them to hold/put them far enough apart to represent the real earth/moon to scale.

Most people will hold them at arms length or less. In fact the tennis ball needs to be about 7 or 8 meters away!

When people then show disbelief in this, the way to prove it is simple, as I did the other night with the kids. When the moon is out and low in the sky, hold a tennis ball up in the air about 7-8 meters away from them so they can see the tennis ball and the moon next to/over each other. Voila! They are the same size!

Got a nice "ohhhhhhhh" from this one with the kids :)
Click to expand...

What you are trying to is impossible.

Go find video of size comparisons on you tube.
got kiddies myself that have started wondering about space( and are all exiited about Elite Dangerous, girls too 8 and 10) and the immensity of space is barely comprehendable of grown ups.
Go look at utube video explaing size

Cheers Cmdr's
 

NeilF

NeilF
Comrade Napoleon said:
What you are trying to is impossible
Click to expand...

Huh? Football in one hand... Tennis ball in the other... That seems very possible :)

And then when they don't believe the moon would be (in scale) 7-8 meters away, simply hold it up 7-8 meters away when the moon is low in the sky, and voila! They are the same size!

Very possible, and far more practical, interactive & fun than watching a video on the screen IMHO.
 

Comrade Napoleon

Comrade Napoleon
NeilF said:
Huh? Football in one hand... Tennis ball in the other... That seems very possible :)

And then when they don't believe the moon would be (in scale) 7-8 meters away, simply hold it up 7-8 meters away when the moon is low in the sky, and voila! They are the same size!

Very possible, and far more practical, interactive & fun than watching a video on the screen IMHO.
Click to expand...

Go search, what i described, holding a sandcorn in your hand and your daugherts standing on the other side og the Globe holding Mount Everest is not really viable is it ?
Google the vid. Space is immense BEYOUND comprehensssion.

Ps. my kid were strucken and had difficulty realizing the sizes. :)

Cheers Cmdr's
 

NeilF

NeilF
Comrade Napoleon said:
Go search, what i described, holding a sandcorn in your hand and your daugherts standing on the other side og the Globe holding Mount Everest is not really viable is it ?
Google the vid. Space is immense BEYOUND comprehensssion.

Ps. my kid were strucken and had difficulty realizing the sizes. :)

Cheers Cmdr's
Click to expand...

I have...

But, as a nice exercise for kids (& indeed adults) the tennis ball & basket/football practical example works beautifully!
 

Comrade Napoleon

Comrade Napoleon
And let me add to that :
Giving the name to an object in space, planet size, printing out on paper would drain the Earth of al paper before you had done 10 %
Even if you could travel at the speed of light you would not reach the end of the universe, before all things came to an end (Entropi equation).
Short: It IS rather huge. :)

Cheers Cmdr's
 

hawkenfox

hawkenfox
Comrade Napoleon said:
And let me add to that :
Giving the name to an object in space, planet size, printing out on paper would drain the Earth of al paper before you had done 10 %
Even if you could travel at the speed of light you would not reach the end of the universe, before all things came to an end (Entropi equation).
Short: It IS rather huge. :)

Cheers Cmdr's
Click to expand...

It's a kid's exercise to give them an idea of a scaled down model. Give the man a beer Napoleon. I quite like it may try it with my boy when he is old enough. He is still 2 year old learning the colors now :D
 

Mucka

M
Comrade Napoleon said:
And let me add to that :
Giving the name to an object in space, planet size, printing out on paper would drain the Earth of al paper before you had done 10 %
Even if you could travel at the speed of light you would not reach the end of the universe, before all things came to an end (Entropi equation).
Short: It IS rather huge. :)

Cheers Cmdr's
Click to expand...

Even that does not nearly do the size of the Universe justice.
If you travelled at half the speed of light it would take a quarter of a million years just to traverse our milky way, that is longer than the entire existence of modern man and over five times longer than the very earliest recorded history ancient man.
It would take around 3,500 lifetimes to complete the journey.
Of course the current reality is we can't travel at close to light speed and the fastest we travel is about 35,000 times slower than that.
So half that and multiply the time taken to travel the milky way by say 17,000 and at current rates it would take around 4,250,000,000 that is four thousand, two hundred and fifty million years which coincidently is close to the estimated age of Earth itself.

Of course that is just one average galaxy among trillions and trillions with each galaxy containing billions of stars and many more of planets still.
The observable universe (which is only a fraction of a rapidly expanding Universe) is around 50 billion light years (50,000,000,000) which is around another half million times bigger than our galaxy.
 
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