In 30 seconds
Grant Sanderson explains a powers-of-ten animation, its limitations as a representation of distance, and its use of galaxy survey data.
- 1Powers of tenThe animation increases the scale tenfold every three seconds.
- 2A scale caveatA rapid zoom cannot convey actual travel times.
- 3Galaxy surveysSurvey data reveals patterns in the distribution of galaxies.
Takeaways
- The animation increases the scale tenfold every three seconds.
- A rapid zoom cannot convey actual travel times.
- Survey data reveals patterns in the distribution of galaxies.
Read the edited text by chapter
A journey through scale
From nearby stars to galaxy survey data.
Grant Sanderson describes an animation by collaborator Paul D. Stepp that zooms outward by a factor of ten every three seconds. It comes from a longer pair of videos about how astronomical distances are measured.
The zoom passes through apparently empty orders of magnitude after leaving the Solar System before reaching the nearest stars. The animation compresses enormous differences in distance into seconds.
Sanderson cautions that a fast visual zoom can make distant galaxies feel more accessible than they are: even light takes millions of years to travel from the Andromeda galaxy. Andromeda is the nearest large galaxy, though smaller satellite galaxies are closer to the Milky Way.
Rather than invent a view of the whole universe, the animation ends with a point cloud based on Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy data. Such surveys allow astronomers to map and study large-scale structures despite the immense distances.
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