Correction: Magnitude of Scale

In class we talked about the correlation of the circumference of the earth at approximately 25,000 miles to the moon at 250,000 miles away at an order of magnitude of about 10. This means that a physical model of a common globe of circumference of approximately 3 feet would have a corresponding moon a ball the size of the United States on the surface of that globe positioned about 30 feet away, an order of magnitude about 10.

I then said the distance to the sun would be an order of magnitude about 400. Actually, the distance from the earth to the sun would be about 93,000,000 miles, which would be an order of magnitude of 4,000. The sun has a circumference of approximately 2,713,406 miles around. That would correlate from a common globe to a ball about 300 feet around over 12,000 feet (2.25 miles) away.

So much space and such a tiny earth. The earth is a very special place.