Alt text:
Astronomers are a little unsure of the applicability of this index, but NASA's Planetary Protection Officer is all in favor.
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
459 points (98.3% liked)
xkcd
8781 readers
83 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is our moon really that big? I thought Charon-Pluto is kinda a special cases that they look like twin planets instead
It's the largest relative moon (fifth largest in absolute terms) of any planet (sorry Pluto) and is more than a quarter as large as the earth itself. It's also relatively further from the planet than most moons in the solar system.
Fun fact, you can actually fit every single other planet at the same time in the space between the earth and the moon, with a bit to spare.
Though, not for very long. Gravity hates when you try things like this.
Yeah, if you see a real scale moon + earth distance, you wonder why he doesn't just fly away.
I think part of it is that Mt Everest is a lot smaller than you'd think when you're looking at this scale. The moon is only 2% of the Earths volume so when you spread it over the Earths surface it's really like a thin thin film to cover the whole surface. But the truth is that all of human experience is an even thinner film smeared across the surface.
How is 43 km of moon armor a thin surface by any means?
Consider that the earth is ~12700 km in diameter
Yeah, but from surface to space it's ruthly 100 km, so 43 km is quite the cover. Then again, I get what you are saying. I gues it's a matter of perspective.
Ah I see. Although the comic spreads the moon "relatively", it presents it absolutely. Although interesting in by itself it does feels it's missing something.
That's exactly what I was thinking, how is it possible?