I'm taking another three day weekend, as my birthday is on Monday and I have a bit of a vacation from work! I'll be back next week to share photos and adventures.
I thought we'd start the month off with a fun boredom buster courtesy of my mom and my friend Jeff. This one easily sucked away hours of my life, but I'm a geek like that. It's a scale of the universe from the absolute smallest object (quantum foam) to the absolute largest (the known universe).
Now, if you're like me, it'll take a bit for your head to wrap around the concept: I kept wanting to see this chart as "zooming in" and "zooming out" -- ie, the chart starts at "human", and as you move the slider right, it seems as though you're simply getting bigger and further from Earth. But the scale is actually just based on the size of the diameter. This can seem a little silly, especially when you get to objects such as the United States, which are apparently "bigger" than Pluto and the Moon. (Based on diameter, not overall mass!)
Once you figure it out, though, it's fun clicking all the objects and reading the silly explanations for each. Being a astronomer/physics major in my (brief) past, I geeked out over all the stars, planets, and galaxies more so than the protons and electrons. Click {here} to see the whole thing. Enjoy your trip through the universe!
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