If the Moon were only 1 pixel in diameter on a map, what would be the scale of the Solar System? Artist and designer Josh Worth has created a great web page that actually answers this question – a tediously accurate map of the Solar System. He scaled the Moon to only one pixel (the radius of the Moon is 1,737 km / 1079.322 mi) and put the planets and other astronomical bodies like the Kuiper Belt objects accordingly.

Since the human brain cannot deal with really large numbers, it is a good way to understand how big is our Solar System actually (it is really big!).

Click on the image below to see the animation. And get ready to scroll a lot, because most of the space is just… space.

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the Solar System
Artist and designer Josh Worth has created a great web page that is actually a scaled model of our solar system. He scaled the Moon to only one pixel (the radius of the Moon is 1,737 km / 1079.322 mi) and put the planets and other objects like the Kuiper Belt accordingly.

While scrolling, you’ll go faster than light, but it’ll be like the solar system never ends. That’s how big space is. As the English author Douglas Adams pointed out:

“Space is 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’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

If the moon were only 1 pixel in diameter: Earth and Moon
If the moon were only 1 pixel in diameter, the Earth’s diameter would be only 3.66 pixels (The diameter of Earth: 12,742 km / 7917.5 miles, the diameter of Moon: 3,474.8 km / 2,160 miles). Note that the distance between Earth and Moon is much greater than most people think.
Jupiter and its moons
If the moon were only 1 pixel in diameter, the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter‘s diameter would be about 40 pixels (The diameter of Jupiter: 139,820 km / 86,880 miles, the diameter of Moon: 3,474.8 km / 2,160 miles). Ganymede, the largest and most massive of the Solar System’s moons would be 1.5 pixels in diameter (Ganymede’s real diameter is 5,268.2 km / 3,273.5 miles).

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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