11 mind-melting photos will make you realize how shockingly small Earth is

Jupiter Earth comparison
John Brady/Astronomy Central

Earth feels pretty large, and we feel pretty tiny living on it.

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But we rarely, if ever, stop to think about the vast beyond. And we should!

Former astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in his book "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space":

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

So just how small is Earth compared with the rest of outer space? These photos will help put our planet in perspective.

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This humbling photo, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2013, shows what Earth, indicated by the tiny white arrow, looks like from 898 million miles away.

pale blue dot
NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center

NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center

Here, North America is superimposed next to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. As you can see in this to-scale image, Jupiter's giant storm would completely swallow the entire continent.

Jupiter Earth comparison
John Brady at Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

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Saturn's rings are a beautiful spectacle of the cosmos, but they look much better on Saturn than on Earth.

Earth Saturns rings
John Brady on Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

Saturn's rings are so large that you can fit six Earths across them. The millions of ice particles that make up these rings are only as large as a few feet across for comparison.

Saturn rings
John Brady on Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

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Mars could become a second home for humanity, but it's only a little more than half the size of Earth. North America, for example, just barely fits on one of Mars' hemispheres.

Size of Mars
John Brady on Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

The tallest volcanic mountain in the entire solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. If it were on Earth, it would completely cover Arizona.

Olympus Mons
John Brady on Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

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Jupiter's moon Io is the most geologically active object in the solar system with more than 400 active volcanoes. North America has about 100 for comparison.

Size of Io
John Brady on Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

Jupiter's watery moon Europa is four times smaller than Earth, but scientists think it has more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. A sphere containing all of Europa's water would be 300 miles wider than one with all of Earth's water.

Europa
5 hours ahead

Uploaded to YouTube by 5 hours ahead.

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The sun contains 99.86% of the mass in our solar system and is large enough to fit 1.3 million Earths inside of it. Pretty big, right?

Sun compared to Earth
John Brady at Astronomy Central

Courtesy of John Brady, who founded the blog Astronomy Central.

Not as big as our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Look just south of the center of our galaxy and you'll see a small spot labeled "Sun." That's where our tiny solar system lives amid the other 100 billion stars in our galaxy.

Artist's_impression_of_the_Milky_Way_(updated_ _annotated)
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESO/R

Created by the folks at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cal-Tech University, and the European Southern Observatory.

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That red dot is where our galaxy lives within a supercluster of galaxies called Laniakea, meaning "immeasurable heaven." We'll leave you with these eloquent words from Sagan: "We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever."

Laniakea map universe
Nature Video/YouTube

Uploaded to YouTube by Nature video.

Now that you've seen our place in the universe, get better acquainted with Mars:

mars
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Epically awesome pictures of Mars »

Space Science
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