How BIG Is Our Solar System? | Earth Science

New science kid on the block Dominic Burgess uses the scientific football pitch method to try and give us an idea of just how big our solar system really is.

Footnotes:

[physicallyawesome]

The universe is so big that to me it's actually impossible to comprehend. No matter how many universe comparison videos I watch, or no matter how many times I look at the stars and planets through my telescope, I just can't comprehend these things. Anyone agree?

[mattparker]

I'm a tired science teacher... and that's exactly how I pronounce Uranus. That made me laugh.

[SuperSecretSquirell]

It's amazing that the sun can still have a gravitational effect at those distances.

[usacountryhumans]

This guy included Pluto, I like this guy.

[Newportal]

According to that scale, the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 40, 303 kilometres away. There is barely enough room on the circumference of the earth (From the equator) that can fit on this scale. It would literally wrap around the Earth!

[plebian]

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

[brodyobrien]

Don't use London buses as a form of measurement... Im Australian. I don't know how long a London bus is... use a kangaroo tail instead 😂

EDIT 2021: Still have not been to London due to Corona … still not sure of the solar system’s size

[CCcrafted]

At 2:46 you said 150 million miles when it should be 150 million km

[petermerchant]

I gotta ask: Are you getting your miles and kilometers confused? The Earth is about 93 million miles from the sun, which is about 150 million kilometers.

[SnarkierThan-U-R]

Thanks for mentioning Pluto our, much maligned but greatly loved forgotten family member

[Maniac]

Reminds me of a problem I have when imagining a spaceship I dreamed up. It's 10km by 3km by 1.5km (roughly). Whenever I imagine it next to something, it's always way, way too small. I have to really stretch my imagination to make it the correct size. It feels like pulling on a rubber band, my mind doesn't want to go that big, and resists. Human minds just seem to have a limit to how big we can perceive things. So, the solar system, being positively gargantuan in size compared to our sense of scale, just has a hard time being comprehended.

[blingximus]

It's amazing the reach of the Sun's gravitational pull.

[gallendugall]

Which is why in my fiction I have battles take place over distances of light minutes and light seconds rather than having everyone drive right up next to each other (eyeball range) like most fiction does. Also makes it insanely complex, keeping track of weapons fire and maneuvering over such distances of time and space, which I love.

[arborterra]

Great video! Really puts things into perspective!

[whywhy]

Our Solar System is stupidly small compared to the Milky Way Galaxy, and The Milky Way Galaxy is stupidly small compared to the entire Universe😂. We're absolutely nothing in the Universe lol.

[jwr]

We needed this demonstration when I was in school in the seventies. Those models you portrayed in the beginning of the video were so inaccurate that they should have been outlawed. I recently watched another video that included the closest stars. Absolutely astonishing.
Thanks for the lesson.

[yessicagonzalezixta]

I am in love with this guy, even when he confused miles with kilometers...

[ZexMaxwell]

We need to change the name of Uranus to end that joke.
...
...
To urectum.

[Ric-Phillips]

My home town, Melbourne, has a scale model of the solar system arranged along the beaches of Port Phillip Bay. It slightly larger than the one mocked up for the video. I have walked it once. It really does give a sense of just how much nothing there is out there.

[kishanvaishnav]

When he said "As always" I was hoping to hear "Thanks for watching" Vsauce!