SCALE WALK
The Sun
Shrink the Sun to a basketball. Now everything else has to shrink too — and spread out. Scroll to walk it.
24 cm — a basketball
you are here — the start of the walk
Shrink the Sun to this and everything else must shrink with it. In truth it is 1.4 million kilometres across -- about 109 Earths side by side -- and holds 99.86% of the solar system's mass.
THE SUN → MERCURY
Keep going. This is what the solar system mostly is: nothing.
light needs 3.2 min just to cross this stretch
Mercury
0.84 mm — a pinhead
walked 10 m · really 57.9 million km from the Sun
Barely a pinhead: the smallest planet, and the fastest, whipping around the Sun once every 88 days.
MERCURY → VENUS
Still nothing. Out here the worlds are the exception; the emptiness is the rule.
light needs 2.8 min just to cross this stretch
Venus
2.09 mm — a peppercorn
walked 18.6 m · really 108.2 million km from the Sun
The same peppercorn as Earth -- almost our twin in size -- but cloaked in cloud and hot enough to melt lead.
VENUS → EARTH
The sunlight is thinning behind you, and there is a long way yet to go.
light needs 2.3 min just to cross this stretch
at motorway speed (100 km/h) you'd have been driving 171 years to get even this far
Earth
2.2 mm — a peppercorn
walked 25.8 m · really 149.6 million km from the Sun
Home, about two millimetres wide. Everything our species has ever done happened on this single peppercorn.
EARTH → MARS
No shortcuts at true scale -- this is honestly how far apart everything sits.
light needs 4.4 min just to cross this stretch
Mars
1.17 mm — a mustard seed
walked 39.3 m · really 227.9 million km from the Sun
Half Earth's width -- a mustard seed -- and the only other world our robots currently roam.
MARS → JUPITER
If this feels like a long way, good. That is exactly the point.
light needs 30.6 min just to cross this stretch
Jupiter
2.5 cm — a large marble
walked 134.2 m · really 778.5 million km from the Sun
The giant: a marble among peppercorns, with more mass than all the other planets put together.
JUPITER → SATURN
The next world is always farther than it feels.
light needs 36.4 min just to cross this stretch
at motorway speed (100 km/h) you'd have been driving 1,636 years to get even this far
Saturn
2.1 cm — a marble
walked 247.1 m · really 1.43 billion km from the Sun
A marble so light it would float in water. Its rings would spread about 5 cm across here -- yet be far thinner than a sheet of paper.
SATURN → URANUS
Keep going. This is what the solar system mostly is: nothing.
light needs 1.3 h just to cross this stretch
Uranus
8.81 mm — a pea
walked 494.8 m · really 2.87 billion km from the Sun
A pea tipped right over, rolling around the Sun on its side.
URANUS → NEPTUNE
Still nothing. Out here the worlds are the exception; the emptiness is the rule.
light needs 1.5 h just to cross this stretch
Neptune
8.54 mm — a pea
walked 774.6 m · really 4.5 billion km from the Sun
The last true planet: a pea almost 800 metres from the basketball, in perpetual blue twilight.
NEPTUNE → PLUTO
The sunlight is thinning behind you, and there is a long way yet to go.
light needs 1.3 h just to cross this stretch
at motorway speed (100 km/h) you'd have been driving 6,738 years to get even this far
Pluto
0.41 mm — a grain of salt
walked 1.02 km · really 5.91 billion km from the Sun
A grain of salt, a full kilometre out -- and even this is just the doorstep. At this scale the nearest star would still lie almost 7,000 km beyond.
That is the whole known walk — 1.02 km from a basketball Sun to a grain-of-salt Pluto. Everything humanity has ever built, seen, or visited sits somewhere in the first few dozen metres of it.
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