Some solar system neighbors at lunar scale

In a move that is intended purely to showcase some interesting content I found (and not at all to merely boost my dwindling posts-per-day ratio), here’s a neat little animation showing the sizes of some of our neighboring planets as they would appear if they were at the same distance from the Earth as the Moon:

Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

I was half-expecting Jupiter to swallow us all at such close a relatively close proximity, but it turns out its radius (44,400 miles/71,500 KM^*) would only span just less than a fifth of the average distance between the Earth and the Moon (238,900 miles/384,400 KM). How disappointing, Jupiter. Some giant you are. You need to eat more planetesimals.

(via The Daily Grail)

* Turns out Googling “radius of Jupiter” instantly gives you “radius of Jupiter = 71 492 kilometers” written above the search results, thus sparing the idle researcher literally seconds of tedious digging. I love Google.