11 photos that make you realize how amazingly small our Earth is
The earth seems huge to us, and we ourselves, living on it, feel tiny. But do any of us often wonder how small our home planet is compared to the rest of the cosmos?
These photos will help to see the Earth in perspective.
In this photo taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2013, a tiny Earth, indicated by an arrow, is visible from a distance of 1.4 billion kilometers. (© NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center)
This image compares the size of North America and the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. As you can see, the giant storm raging on this planet is capable of completely engulfing the Earth's continent. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Saturn's rings are an extraordinarily beautiful sight, but they look much better on Saturn than on Earth. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Saturn's rings are so large that six Earth-sized planets can be placed on them. For comparison, the millions of ice particles creating these rings are about a meter in size. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Mars may become a second home for humanity, but it is only a little more than half of the Earth. For example, North America barely fits on one of the hemispheres of Mars. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Olympus, the highest volcanic mountain in the entire Solar System, is located on Mars. If it were on the Ground, it would completely block the state of Arizona. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Jupiter's moon Io, with more than 400 active volcanoes, is the most geologically active object in the Solar System. For comparison, there are only 100 active volcanoes in North America. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Jupiter's moon Europa is four times smaller than Earth, but scientists believe that there is more water on it than in all the oceans of the Earth combined. A sphere containing all the waters of Europe would be 480 kilometers wider than a similar sphere with all the waters of the Earth. (© 5 hours ahead)
The sun contains 99.86% of the mass of our entire Solar System and is so large that 1.3 million Earth planets can fit inside it. (© John Brady at Astronomy Central)
Although it's not as big as our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Look south of the center of this galaxy and you will see a small spot labeled "SUN". That's where our tiny Solar System is, inhabited among 100 billion other stars in our galaxy. (© NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESO/R)
This red dot shows where our galaxy is located in a supercluster of galaxies called Laniakea, which means "vast heavens". (© Nature Video/YouTube)