This amazing graphic was created by Roberto Ziche and shows our solar system to scale. Roberto explains:

“At the Chabot Space and Science Center there were some old, poor quality images, probably downloaded from internet and printed on office paper, showing the Sun and the planets to scale. I found the images content to be extremely interesting, but the design and quality was definitely something that could have been improved. I decided to give it a try, and create a brand new, more artistic view of our solar system, poster size (36″ x 36″), and donate it to the Center to replace those old prints.
 
The 3D geometry was not too complex, but there was a lot of lighting experimentation to get the scene illuminated only by the Sun itself, and some time consuming multi-layer composition in Photoshop.”

 

Ziche has generously provided the illustration as a high-resolution download. You can find a 27.1 mb PNG version here.

 

 

 

The amount of ‘space’ between objects can also boggle the mind. For example, did you know you can fit all of the planets in our solar system in the space between Earth and our moon?

Lastly, check out the video below to see a comparison of our Sun compared to other large stars we have discovered.