"Outer space is not consistently big" by Julian Bradshaw
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"Outer space is not consistently big" by Julian Bradshaw
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Narrated by:
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Summary
— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
When we say "space is big", it's partly meant as a correction to images like this:
Wikimedia source.
where, for simplicity, celestial objects are shown in unrealistically close proximity—like Jupiter is just down the hall from Mars.
As we all know, the planets of the solar system are actually really far apart, even relative to their huge size. In Sweden's 1:20,000,000 to-scale solar system model, Earth and Venus are just ~2 feet in diameter, yet over a mile apart. In other terms, they're several thousand "Earth-widths" apart:
Horizontal distance not to scale, wouldn't fit on screen.
And we all know that's just the start of it: the stars are incredibly far apart. Finland also has a to-scale model of the solar system, but it's 150 times more condensed than Sweden's at 1:3,000,000,000. Its model of our sun, Sol, is just ~1.5 feet in diameter.
Its model of the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is in Australia.
Horizontal distance [...]
The original text contained 9 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
November 14th, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2zyskdas6TsL9dqNg/outer-space-is-not-consistently-big
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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