Feb
18

Have you ever wondered exactly how big the moon is? We love it when otherwise inconceivably large things are put into a comprehensible perspective. Redditor boredboarder8 wanted to better understand the size of the moon. Armed with the knowledge that “the greatest distance between two points within the contiguous U.S. is 2,892 miles (stretching from Point Arena, CA to West Quoddy Head, ME*)” and that the circumference of the Moon is 6,784 miles, boredboarder8 cleverly placed one measurement atop the other to create this rough approximation. “It was difficult for me to fathom the size of the moon, thus inspiring the creation of this map. For me, this map puts the scale of the moon much smaller than I previously imagined. But it’s really interesting hearing how others (already grasping the size of the moon) now see the US as larger.  It was one definitely a weird challenge to take a “flat” map of something on a sphere and project it onto a smaller sphere… Certainly take it only as an approximation, but what intrigued me the most is that the distance spanning the continental United States is roughly equal to a little less than half the circumference of the moon.” So what do you think, does this awesome image make the moon seem larger or smaller than you thought?  [via io9]

Have you ever wondered exactly how big the moon is? We love it when otherwise inconceivably large things are put into a comprehensible perspective. Redditor boredboarder8 wanted to better understand the size of the moon. Armed with the knowledge that “the greatest distance between two points within the contiguous U.S. is 2,892 miles (stretching from Point Arena, CA to West Quoddy Head, ME*)” and that the circumference of the Moon is 6,784 miles, boredboarder8 cleverly placed one measurement atop the other to create this rough approximation.

“It was difficult for me to fathom the size of the moon, thus inspiring the creation of this map. For me, this map puts the scale of the moon much smaller than I previously imagined. But it’s really interesting hearing how others (already grasping the size of the moon) now see the US as larger. 

It was one definitely a weird challenge to take a “flat” map of something on a sphere and project it onto a smaller sphere… Certainly take it only as an approximation, but what intrigued me the most is that the distance spanning the continental United States is roughly equal to a little less than half the circumference of the moon.”

So what do you think, does this awesome image make the moon seem larger or smaller than you thought? 

[via io9]

Notes

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    USAUSAUSAUSA! WE ARE MOON BIG!
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