This horizontally-oriented logarithmic map of the Universe shows how, from left-to-right, we go from Earth-sized scales to the largest cosmic distances of all. As spectacular as this logarithmic view is, it “only” spans about 20 orders of magnitude: from the size of the Earth to the size of the present-day cosmic horizon. (Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi)
As we look to larger cosmic scales, we get a broader view of the expansive cosmic forest, eventually revealing the grandest views of all.
The extent of the visible Universe now goes on for 46.1 billion light-years: the distance that light emitted at the instant of the Big Bang would be located from us today, after a 13.8 billion year journey. As time marches on, light that’s even farther away, that is still on its way to us, will eventually arrive: from slightly greater distances and with slightly greater redshifts. We see into the past when we look out to great distances because the light emitted from distant objects must traverse those great intergalactic distances at a finite speed: the speed of light. (Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi)
Our tiny home world, seemingly massive, is merely 12,742 km (7,917 miles) across.
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This image, taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Karen Nyberg in 2013, shows the two largest islands on the southern part of the Mascarene Plateau: Réunion, in the foreground, and Mauritius, partially covered by clouds. To see a human on Earth from the altitude of the ISS, a telescope the size of Hubble would be needed. The scale of a human is less than 1/5,000,000 the scale of Earth, but Earth is just a proverbial drop in the cosmic ocean, with a diameter of only a little over 10,000 kilometers. (Credit: NASA/Karen Nyberg)
We typically think linearly: where the Sun is ~10,000 times farther away than Earth’s diameter.
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While all of the planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in the same direction, Venus, uniquely, rotates in the opposite direction. For each orbit completed by Venus, although it is the slowest-rotating planet, it experiences roughly two “days” of sunrises and sunsets. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
But cosmically, logarithmic scales — where each multiplicative factor of “10” defines our cosmic ruler’s next mark — serve us far better.
