Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin.
You ever wonder how small we are in the universe?
It turns out, pretty small!
It would be hard to pick you out of a stadium of people, much less the over 7 billion humans
that live on this planet.
Since the average height for a person in the US is about 1.69 meters, let’s estimate
and say that on their tippy toes and with their hands up in the air, the average person
would be about 2 meters from their toes to their fingertips.
That means it would take about 162 people, all stretched out, to be as tall as the Eiffel
Tower, which is 324 meters high.
With the diameter of our nearly-spherical Earth around 12,756 kilometers, that means
it would take nearly 40 /thousand/ Eiffel Towers standing on top of each other to be
as tall as the diameter of the Earth.
What’s pretty cool, is that we’ve actually had a good understanding of how small we are
compared to the Earth for quite awhile!
That’s because back around 2,000 years ago, the size of the Earth was calculated pretty
accurately by the geographer, poet, mathematician and man-of-many-titles known as Eratosthenes.
Sources differ slightly, but it seems like he was only off by about 1 to 17 percent of
the actual value.
That's pretty impressive!
But that’s just how small you are compared to the Earth!
You’re even smaller if you compare yourself to the Sun.
While we may think the Sun is a super big ball of fire, it’s actually kinda small
compared to other stars in the universe.
There are stars /a hundred times/ bigger.
Even the enormous blue star Icarus, the farthest star ever seen, is way bigger, more massive,
and possibly hundreds of thousands of times intrinsically brighter than the Sun!
According to the NASA Night Sky Network, if we shrunk our Sun down to the size of a grain
of sand, our Solar System would be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
On this scale, the Milky Way galaxy would be about as big as North America.
And that’s just our galaxy!
The Milky Way is just one of the billions of galaxies that make up our universe.
That means you’re a super small creature, on a planet much bigger than you are, traveling
around in an even bigger solar system in an even bigger galaxy, which is one of the billions
in the universe.
So yeah.
You’re pretty tiny!
But hey, at least you aren't the size of one of your cells.
Your red blood cells, some of the smallest and most abundant ones in your body, only
have a diameter of about 7 or 8 micrometers, which are a thousand times smaller than a
millimeter.
A typical ant is about 10 millimeters long, so you’re red blood cells are realllllly
realllllly tiny, but they’re still super important to your health.
So next time you’re feeling small, just remember, being a tiny drop in the universe
doesn’t stop you from doing awesome and important things.
Huh?
That was a good motivational quote.
I should put that on my instagram.
In the comment section below, i wanna learn something cool about you.
Thanks for being here, and thanks for watching!
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Curious to know what would cause planet earth to explode?
Check out this video!
This asteroid was about 9 kilometers in diameter and it hit the planet at about 64,000 kilometers
per hour.
Even with all that force, it only carved out a chunk of Earth a few kilometers deep.
As always, my name is Blocko, this has been Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!