[Nadya]

As you mention - comprehending how large/small countries are is tough for some people. Planet-size differences even more so. Many probably don't realize how big the sun is! Then you have to comprehend that on a galactic scale - our sun is really, really tiny [0].

We exist on a tiny spec of dust; inside of a solar system that is no larger than a tiny spec of dust; inside of a galaxy that is no larger than a tiny spec of dust; inside a supercluster that is only a tiny spec of dust.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/DUzDo3k.gifv

[sevensor]

Every time I try to comprehend the sun as it actually is -- its size and composition -- I end up completely boggled and unnerved. A vast and uncaring ball of plasma, mostly hydrogen, supporting billions of years of fusion reactions, so big that the orbit of the planet I live on causes only the slightest wobble in its position; it's no wonder the ancients worshiped the sun. There's nothing about it I can begin to grasp except by analogy.

[hexagonc]

I'll just leave this here for you. . .

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Comparis...

[simplemath]

Ill just leave THIS here for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgNDao7m41M

[sevensor]

Thanks to you, and to the GP. I do enjoy the analogies! I think the absolutely brain-crushing thing about objects of astronomic magnitude is trying to reverse the log-transform we use to make sense of them. For me it produces a sense of vertigo, like standing at the top of a cliff.

[hexagonc]

Okay. . . (humbly slinks away with tail between his legs)

[simplemath]

that video totally blows my mind, i must have watched it a dozen times.

[hexagonc]

Yeah, it's pretty damn epic.