If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the solar system
55 points by frontsideair
55 points by frontsideair
I think it would cool to see orbital inclinations relative to the solar plane. Would that be invisible at this scale, or would the planets be off the screen?
This is a good opportunity to play with GNU Units!
I got orbital inclinations here and used the minimum distance from the sun to get a value in pixels. I think the website uses mean distances but this is the most conservative estimate, and I don’t know how the orbits’ major axes line up with their inclinations.
sin(inclination) * sun_distance should give a distance up or down to represent the maximum displacement out of Earth’s plane and a conversion factor of 1 pixel / 1 moondiameter should give us the pixel count.
In GNU Units:
You have: sin(7 degrees) * mercurysundist_min / (2 moonradius)
You want:
Definition: 1612.7704
etc.
mercury: 1612 px
venus: 1833 px
mars: 1867 px
jupiter: 4833 px
saturn: 17035 px
uranus: 10976 px
neptune: 40402 px
pluto: 377290 px
Even Mercury escapes my monitor.
Not recommended for cell phones. :D
This is a beautiful piece of work… but man, will it induce thumb RSI.
In the sentences after Saturn, I think the author is using “metaphor” incorrectly? Those are comparisons, not metaphors.
Still cool, though
Analogy, metaphor and comparison can be considered to be “the same thing”, see “Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking” by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander. What it means for things to be “the same” is a major topic in the book.
I was thinking of metaphor as a figure of speech, not philosophically, which might have a more strict definition.
That said, I learned that definition in, like, 7th grade? So I’m open to alternative perspectives.