… then “Jupiter would be revoking democracy in Russia, Saturn would be curling in Canada, Uranus would be trying to figure out how to speak Kalaallisut, Neptune would be desperately looking for water in Saudi Arabia, and Earth would be searching in vain for Borat.”
Puzzled?
This is a size comparison map, taken from this page at the website statastico.com, which figures a number of intriguing maps. This one is home-made by the author of the site, who got to wondering about an eyecatching way to demonstrate the relative sizes of the planets in our solar system. She/he explains:
“What if the planets were shrunk down to the size of countries on Earth? If we scale all of the planets down to about 1/3600th of their total surface area, we can find a comparably-sized country for all of the planets and plutons.”
Plutons being the name for celestial objects such as Pluto, recently demoted from planet. Confining ourselves to the 8 bona fide planets left in our system, the planet-to-country comparisons work out like this (in descending order of magnitude, I presume):
- Jupiter = Russia
- Saturn = Canada
- Uranus =Greenland
- Neptune = Saudi Arabia
- Earth = Tajikistan
- Venus = Czech Republic
- Mars = Switzerland
- Mercury = El Salvador
Pluto is about the size of the Cape Verde Islands, while other plutons such as Charon (Martinique) and Ceres (Netherlands Antilles) also can be linked to small, tropical island paradises. Who needs to be big when you have beaches and sunshine? The actual planet – I mean, pluton – of Pluto, by the way, is so small that all of its 16,7 million sq. km of surface would fit inside Russia.
Or, you could say that Russia is so big it could swallow Pluto.
Comment by Markk — April 11, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
This site: http://mondediplo.com/maps/ is great, although, unfortunately for me, most of the maps are in French.
Comment by Dan Michelson — April 11, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
Hi,
The map is very interesting.
Everything anyone does to make the Universe more understandable, and in an easy relevant way, is needed in this overly-rushed, non-technically oriented society.
Of course, the best Education will also search for the information most-needed for the populace to understand, and on this score, this information may not rank highly.
However, it is a foundational piece of information, needed to understand our Neighborhood, so that gives it merit, but I would like to see the same done for the Near-Earth Objects and asteroids which could impact Earth.
Best to all — Em
PS Please visit me at: http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
“Everyone knows someone who needs this information!” (TM)
Use it for Prevention or for Sharing.
Comment by em — April 11, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
Very interesting concept..
lauriekendrick.wordpress.com
Comment by lauriekendrick — April 11, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
Nothing to Australia, Africa, South America and South-east asia including Indian sub-continent?
Comment by astroshiva — April 11, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
heh, I didn’t see that one coming. Quite interesting ;)
Comment by ML — April 11, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
Saturn would leave a different shadow. Just sayin’
Comment by Rendall — April 11, 2007 @ 11:49 pm
Hi there,
I came across a great geographical oddity I thought you might be interested in: India and Bangladesh’s enclaves, enclaves-within-enclaves, and even one enclave-within-an-enclave-within-an-enclave. Here’s the link:
http://geosite.jankrogh.com/cooch_behar.htm
Really fascinating…
Comment by Brad — April 12, 2007 @ 3:48 am
What a great way to get a visceral feel for the relative sizes.
Here’s a well-crafted image that conveys similar information:
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
and another that also includes moons, minor planets and asteroids:
http://kokogiak.com/solarsystembodieslargerthan200miles.html
Comment by Bill Dunford — April 12, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
One of the more visually attractive maps and a really cool way to demonstrate the relative size of the planets. The Sun, of course, would be off the scale…
Comment by yorick — April 13, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
This is neat for comparing the surface areas. However, the relative sizes of images of the planets are misleading as shown above. I feel that it gives the wrong impression of size difference among the planets. Check NASA’s site for a more straightforward comparison of overall planet sizes. Note how much smaller Earth is compared to Jupiter on NASA’s site.
http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=178
Comment by Jim Fonseca — April 13, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
This illustration makes me think of Piers Anthony’s sci-fi series “Bio of a Space Tyrant” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio_of_a_Space_Tyrant), wherein, if I recall correctly, North and South America,etc controlled Jupiter, and Saturn was controlled by Russia and China, etc.
Comment by Pablo — April 17, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
BTW, Borat not about Tajikistan. It’s about Kazakhstan. But who of you, american nerds, cares???
Comment by Bilbo — May 14, 2007 @ 12:24 pm
PLUTO is a PLANET! The vote that said it wasn’t was rigged.
Sincerely,
President Al Gore
Comment by Sea Shanty Irish — July 31, 2007 @ 3:34 am
thanks alot
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 2:44 am
thanks for this map..
good
luck
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 7:35 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 5:12 am
Nice having all those “sub-planetary objects” or whatever you want to call them, but as Charon (as I understand it) is a satellite or companion of Pluto, it’s a pity they don’t have some of the larger moons on this map – Titan,the bigger Jupiter moons, and Earth’s moon. Are they just too small? Surely one of them would approximate Vatican City or Monaco?
Comment by Violet — May 28, 2009 @ 5:08 am
teşekkür ederim
Comment by yory — June 12, 2009 @ 8:49 pm
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 4:03 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 6:55 am