“Powers of Ten”

Although our Universe is very, very big, the stuff of which it is made is very, very small.

The biggest: 1 × 1023 ...?

100,000.000,000,000,000,000,000 meters

The largest is far away;

the smallest is within us.

The smallest: 1 × 10-15 ...?

0.0000000000000001 of a meter

“Powers of 10”

Within a vast Universe exists a blue marble of light, a “blue dot”, which we

call Earth.

Earth floating in a ray of sunshinea picture by Pioneer spacecraft requested by the late

Carl Sagan

100 = 1 meter (m) = 3.3 feet (ft)Our world at arm’s length

10-15 1 femtometer (fm) 1.7 femtometer proton in an atomic nucleus

1012 = 1,000,000,000,000 1 light-year = 9.46 × 1012 km

= 1 ly

10-9 1 nanometer (nm) water molecule

10-6 1 micrometer (µm) typical bacteria

1023 ly = 14 billion light years - far, far away ...

The boundary of today’s known universe, perhapstomorrow’s frontiere

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10-3 1 millimeter (mm) ~ 10 sheets of copier paper

10-12 1 picometer (nm) atoms

CERN is the birth-place in 1989 of the World Wide Web Visit CERN at the European Council for Nuclear Research.

Inside one of CERN’s kilometers of circular tunnels: these machines are colloquially referred to as “atom smashers”.

100 = 1

1 meter = 3.28 feet

101 = 10 The wingspan of an Air Bus A380 is 80 meters (8 × 10 m) or 263 ft.

Air Bus A380 Super Jumbo

102 = 100

The Empire State Build-ing in New York City stands 370 m or 3.7 × 102 m.

103 = 1,000

The Russky Bridge in Vladivostok, Russia has a span of 1,100 m or 1.1 × 103 m.

104 = 10,000 The Earth is 12,742 km in diameter or

1.2742 × 104 km (~ 8,000 miles).

105 kilometers = 100,000 km

Our Moon is ~3.8 × 108 meters or 3.8 × 105 kilometers (~ 239,000 miles) from Earth. The distance from the Earth to the Moon can also be described as being 1.1 light-seconds.

Our Sun in infra-red

Our Sun in ultraviolet

106 = 1,000.000 The Earth is 150,000.000 km or

1.5 × 109 m from the Sun

93,000,000 miles = 8 light-minutes

109 = 1,000,000,000 = 1 billion

In this photograph, Earth is 1.44 × 109

kilometers, or ~900 million miles, from Saturn (NASA Cassini: 19 July 2013).

1012 = 1,000,000,000,000

1 light year = 9.46 × 1012 km = 300,000 meters per second (the speed of light) × 3,600 seconds in 1 hour ×

24 hours in 1 day × 365 days in 1 year = 1 light-year

Our closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, is a mere 4.22 ly distant from Earth. Note the reddish color, which indicates a cool star that is very slowly dying.

The North Star, or Pole Star, has been used for millennia to navigate across land and sea.

1015 = 1,000,000,000,000,000

Polaris (North Star) is4.11 × 1015 km or

~ 434 light-years from Earth

Milky Way Galaxy

1017  2.55 × 1017 km =

~27,000 ly

Distance from Earth to center of

Milky Way Galaxy

1018

1 × 1018 km = ~ 110,000 ly

Diameter of Milky Way Galaxy

Secrets of space have opened new technologies that can lead to unlimited, clean energy and bountiful natural resources for the ever-adaptive human species.

Ralph Baldasare

PS: the last page of this presentation shows a list of links to other versions of the “Power of Ten”; enjoy.

How big is the Universe? At the present time, we can see objects that are 13- to 14-billlion light years from Earth, but we do not know if this is the edge of the Universe.

Choose your galaxy and go in peace.

Although the IBM version of the “Powers of 10” movie debuted in 1977, an early version was produced in the late 1960s from photographs available from NASA. The 1977 “Power of 10” can be viewed at

Powers of 10 -film \

Interactive: The Universe-Solved! Version of "The Powers of 10"

For a reference to scientific notation, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Ten

A more theatrical rendition of the Power of 10 concept can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRjGarICal4

Zoom-in on some beautiful views of galaxies and nebula at www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WMTfT5GC2oQ

An inspirational perspective can be found atwww.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-cpYhN2YOU

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Variations of “Powers of Ten”