Space at our scale
Space is big, very big. As soon as we start talking about the universe, we quickly end up talking in light-years, millions, billions, and more. But in the end, we can’t really grasp it, we can’t picture it. What does 15 billion light-years actually mean? And by the way, what is a light-year? To get a clearer idea, all we have to do is divide the distances by a billion, and we quickly realize what it all means. For your information, a light-year is a distance equal to the distance traveled by light in one year, or 9,461 billion kilometers.
So let’s place ourselves in the heliocentric frame of reference, with the Sun placed at the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, in the 8th arrondissement. If we consider the Sun to be a ball 1.40 m in diameter (the width of a small double bed), then:
The Earth would be a marble 1.3 cm in diameter located at the Franprix 150 m further away. 34 cm from this marble would be the Moon, a pinhead 3.4 mm in diameter. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, would be a tiny pearl half a centimeter wide at the end of the street, 50 m away. Mars would be a marble twice as small as the Earth, located 200 m from the Sun-Bed. Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, would be a small melon 14 cm in diameter, located at the National Assembly. Saturn with its rings would be the same size and would be on the Arc de Triomphe. Pluto, the (or former) most distant planet from the Sun, would be a pinhead smaller than the Moon (2.3 mm), located on the Longchamp racecourse.
The Voyager I probe, the farthest object sent by mankind into space, would be located near Palaiseau (18-20 km from our Sun-Bed).
Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, would be in Los Angeles. The North Star would be located at twice the distance that separates us from the Moon.
The star in our galaxy farthest from the Sun would be near Jupiter. (Meaning that if our Sun-Bed is in the middle of Paris, the Milky Way would extend from the middle of Paris all the way to Jupiter).
The Andromeda Galaxy, the closest galaxy to our own, would be 4.5 times further away than Pluto (relative to our bed).
And finally the edge of the visible universe (15 billion light-years) would be, in this “small” frame of reference, 7 times further away than the Andromeda galaxy.
Let’s remember that between all these elements, these little marbles spread across Paris, there is only… emptiness. Yes, our universe is essentially made up of empty space. Let’s also remember that mankind has never gone further than the pinhead 34 cm away from us. If you ever run a marathon, you’ll only have covered 42 micrometers (0.042 mm) on our Marble-Earth located at the Franprix!