Our Beautiful Planet

Take some time to check out All Known Bodies in the Solar System Larger Than 200 Miles in Diameter, and infographic created by web designer Alan Taylor. He’s put together a great (somewhat large) JPEG that contains, just as the title indicates, all the bodies in the solar system that are over 200 miles in diameter. I’m not quite sure how accurate the scale of each of the objects are in relation to each other, but it is a beauty to look at. It’s also a great example of embracing the scroll on the web. It just wouldn’t work to see these comparisons time stretched, or in different graphics. Even though you can’t see everything on the screen at once, mentally we know it is one graphic, and we can easily scroll between views in order to make comparisons.

The thing that most caught my eye was how beautiful our planet is. I’m completely (and justifiably) biased, but to me it is absolutely mind blowing to think of our little rock floating around in this corner of an infinite universe.

There floats Earth—alone—the only “living” rock among numbers of lifeless orbs. It looks out of place, almost freakish, but even more beautiful for being so.