Wednesday, March 12, 2008

It's amazing what a change in perspective can do

It's time to start getting back on track with the theme of this blog, and I thought the best way to do that would be to provide a little bit of perspective on South Africa versus this world we're living in. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting up some [hopefully] interesting info which might just give you a slightly different view of this place we call home.

Just to give an idea of what I'm talking about, have a look at this amazing illustration from our stunning universe:

Our home - Earth, which holds over 6.5 billion people like you and me.




Look at how the sun dwarfs our "huge" planet Earth...



...and then look at how insignificant the sun is compared to the largest known star - Canis Majoris


[in the above picture, you cannot even represent the sun with a single pixel, it's so small]

It's amazing what a change in perspective can do!

[See my source here for a nice visual journey through the universe]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome post - even if you do make me feel all small and insignificant! Just one thing: you say Earth holds "R6.5 billion people" but you should remove the R from 6.5.

Looking forward to the follow up posts!

Darren said...

LOL, thanks Justin - well spotted. Force of habit I guess, but have made the edit now. Besides, there's far more than R6.5bn sitting around to be taken - more like trillions of US$.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, I appreciate it!