Now that international astronomers have everyone thinking about the cosmos for at least a day by throwing Pluto out of the Solar System, let's give a passing thought to our place in the universe. We know that Pluto got tossed out of the planetary club for being a shrimp, a "dwarf planet" that is so small it can't even control its own neighborhood. Okay, then, size matters, so think about this...
Back when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he made a splash in 1977 with his debut album "Let's Get Small". My friend, Thomas Skala, sent me something by e-mail a couple of weeks ago that has absolutely nothing to do with that other than by the time you get through this photo journey you will feel even smaller than Steve Martin felt at his smallest. Ready? Here's picture number one.
Now this should make you feel pretty good. There's our home planet Earth looking like the biggest baddest mother on the block. Mars, which is our closest cousin in the solar system they say, looks like a puny runt compared to us. Now let's roll in the outer planets in the solar system.
Whoa! Suddenly we're looking pretty damn tiny. I mean, if Jupiter is a basketball, then we're a marble, barely. Mars has turned into a BB. Now let's pop in our own sun, Old Sol.
Suddenly our scale is, well, underwhelming. We need the arrow to see the Earth because, at its current size, we'd miss it. We're getting seriously small. But at least we can agree that it's all relative because the sun is immense, right?
There's our sun next to a few of the other suns our astronomers have discovered out there in the galaxy. This is pretty shocking because our sun has become the BB and Earth doesn't even compute. At least we can console ourselves that that other gassy giant Arcturus must be huge beyond all belief. Not so fast.
Yep, that's Arcturus down there, looking like a speck compared to Betelgeuse and Antares.
FYI, Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away. There are 14 brighter stars that we know about.
Definitely feeling small now?
BTW, I don't know the source of these photos. I'm sure that thanks to the reach of the Internet someone will soon tell me so I can post the credit and if any of you scientists out there want to toss in your own analysis, fire away. Or if this is all one of those demented hoaxes that would be fine to know, too. It might be a relief to think we are bigger than this makes us out to be, but I doubt it. Maybe they're right, though, maybe size isn't everything when it comes to sex or significance.
Me? I'm gonna give Steve Martin another listen and try to stay psyched up enough to get out of bed tomorrow...
