It’s been over 2 weeks since the New Horizons spacecraft completed its flyby of Pluto, and a lot of us are still wondering about its true significance (beyond amazing photos, of course!). Want your questions answered? Check out this SciShow video!
Videos
CRASH COURSE: INTRO TO ASTRONOMY
CAN’T COMPREHEND DISTANCES IN SPACE? WATCH THIS VIDEO!
Our Sun is 150,000,000 km (93,000,000 miles) away from Earth. Seems like a lot, right?
WRONG!
The Sun is down right close compared to other objects in space. Even the Andromeda Galaxy, our closest large neighbor, is a whopping 15,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. That’s 15 quintillion miles!
To cope with these unimaginably long distances, astronomers use other measurements — like AUs and light years — in their studies. If you want to learn how this all works, take a look at this video made by Astronomy Magazine:
Observing Basics: Distances in Space | Astronomy.com.
And, if you really want your mind blown, check out the interactive site Scale of the Universe, which illustrates how the tiniest sub-atomic particles to the largest structures in the universe compare in size.