Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/30/effects-artist-models-the-univ.html
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He left out Trump’s ego. No wait, it wouldn’t fit. Sorry, my bad.
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You always wondered what the Universe was in, now you answered it yourself.
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There’s a pretty cool scale model of the solar system spread out along a cycle track near York. It really gives you a sense of vastness when you cycle for several miles between various ball-sized planets.
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Cool video, but super hyper dude is exhausting.
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Typically these exercises focus on the distance between bodies, so I like the change of pace. But…
In terms of understanding the Hertzsprung -Russell diagram, it would be better if he could have scaled the mass and luminosity instead. I guess the more of these videos out there, the more focused future educators will need to be.
Also, I’d sure love to see logarithmic scales used for these things, it’d make everything so much more intuitive if people just grokked those scales without having to get all gee-size about it.
What crazy cosmic coincidence? Is he maybe talking faster than he can think?
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This is perhaps the greatest nightmare I could imagine this Halloween. Thanks.
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Sorry/not sorry. But mostly sorry.
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One of the largest black holes, S5 0014+81, is theorized to have an event horizon around 80 times larger than the orbit of Pluto.
I memorized that awhile ago because well, it’s awesome.
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Bit harder to visit in one go, but there is a bitter one in Sweden:
http://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/
Starting in Stochkolm with Globe Arena, the largest spherical building in the world as the sun.
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And slightly to the east, there’s a model solar system near Helsinki: Tähtitieteellinen yhdistys Ursa: Aurinkokuntamalli
It’s at one-to-billion scale. 
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What he doesn’t mention regarding the eventual explosion, aka. supernova of Betelgeuse (which will result in an object larger and brighter than the full moon in the night sky) is how much of the radiation will reach the Earth’s surface. If that much of the visible light will reach us, I gotta wonder.
got a passion for scaled solar-systems, right mark?
might be nitpicking, but related to your headline…well, the solar-system and/or milkyway isnt the universe, but just a very tiny part of it. 
uups, sorry. didnt saw it was actually the title of the video 
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Not enough to worry about. Betelgeuse is 430 light years away; the minimum safe distance from a supernova is calculated to be somewhere between 50 to 100 light years. So we will be fine.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/supernove-distance
No potential supernova stars are currently known closer than about 150 light years away.
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There is one in Madison WI, the interesting thing to me is the uneven distribution. The Sun to Mars are a few city blocks and come quick, Saturn is a few miles further down, Pluto is a good 30m car ride away.
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Of course at that scale, the distance from the Sun to Alpha Centauri is about a quarter-million kilometers – so about 2/3rd the distance to the Moon.
It’s as though space is big. Really big.
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On the same website, there was this mindblowing display:
Radio waves from our galaxy, the Milky Way, reflecting off the surface of the Moon and observed by the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope located in outback Western Australia. Credit: Dr Ben McKinley, Curtin University/ICRAR/ASTRO 3D. Moon image courtesy of NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
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You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
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There’s also one on the Pere Marquette Rail-Trail in Michigan, between Coleman and North Bradley, west of Sanford. Not quite a Total Perspective Vortex, but still pretty humbling. The Sun is in Coleman, and the planets stretch eastward for about 5.6 miles, at a 1:600,000,000 scale.
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