uniladtech homepage
  • News
    • Tech News
    • AI
  • Gadgets
    • Apple
    • iPhone
  • Gaming
    • Playstation
    • Xbox
  • Science
    • News
    • Space
  • Streaming
    • Netflix
  • Vehicles
    • Car News
  • Social Media
    • WhatsApp
    • YouTube
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Archive
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
TikTok
Snapchat
WhatsApp
Submit Your Content
Mind-bending photo of Mercury in front of the Sun shows just how small the planet is in comparison
Home>Science>Space
Published 10:55 23 Apr 2024 GMT+1

Mind-bending photo of Mercury in front of the Sun shows just how small the planet is in comparison

The Sun dwarfs everything else in our solar system.

Prudence Wade

Prudence Wade

google discoverFollow us on Google Discover
Featured Image Credit: NASA/ NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Earth
Science
Space
Sun

Advert

Advert

Advert

Sometimes a photo comes along that perfectly shows the sheer scale of our solar system - and pretty much the whole universe we live in, too.

One photo has been doing the rounds on Reddit, and it continues to blow people's minds.

It shows the Sun through a telescope with a small black dot in front of it - which is actually, in fact, Mercury.

That's right, it's a planet that's around a third of the size of Earth, but is so far away (and, in turn, so far away from the Sun) that it looks like a speck of dirt on your screen, while the Sun is so massive that it's not even fully captured.

Those who've got a grip on their knowledge of our solar system will remember that Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but just because it's closer than any other doesn't mean it's actually within touching distance.

Advert

In reality, Mercury is on average around 58 million kilometers away from the Sun.

One Reddit post showing this unbelievable snap has a whole host of comments beneath it, too, as people react to the scale of what they're seeing.

Cameran Ashraf / Getty
Cameran Ashraf / Getty

In classic Reddit style, the most upvoted comment is actually a joke about using the internet nowadays. It quips: "The x button on those ads," referencing pop-up ads that give you the tiniest of buttons to hit to close them.

Further down the comments section, there's another that is far more serious - in fact, it's a bit of a physics lesson.

It explains: "To give you an idea of just how big that thing is: Through fusing Hydrogen into Helium, the Sun loses about 4.3 million metric tons per second. And it has for billions of years and will for billions more."

That's informative enough already, but the comment actually goes on even further: "To give you an idea of just how much energy that is, if you do the math and accounting, and get all E=MC2 about it, slightly less than one single gram of matter decimated Hiroshima when they dropped the bomb in WWII. The Sun releases the energy of 4,300,000,000,000 Little Boys per second."

Well, that should leave you with a bit more of an understanding of the wild scale of the cosmos, all from a simple photo.

Choose your content:

7 hours ago
a day ago
  • JUAN GAERTNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images
    7 hours ago

    Record-breaking monster El Niño is forming and the last time it was this bad it killed 60M people

    Scientists warn this could bring extreme heat, deadly floods, droughts and economic chaos across the globe

    Science
  • Darrin Klimek / Getty
    a day ago

    Eerie online calculator reveals your life expectancy with just a few simple questions

    You might not want to find out how long you've got left

    Science
  • Sion Touhig / Staff via Getty
    a day ago

    Stephen Hawking agreed with unsettling alien theory which could answer huge question

    This explains one of the biggest questions within the alien-hunting community

    Science
  • YouTube/I Fix Hearts by Dr. Ovadia
    a day ago

    Everything that happens to your body when you eat refined carbs as doctor warns they're ‘destroying your heart'

    Refined carbs are found in some of the most commonly eaten foods

    Science
  • NASA supercomputer reveals unsettling timeline for the end of the world
  • Haunting audio recreates sound of Earth's magnetic field flipping 780,000 years ago and experts warn it could happen again
  • Scientist 'cracked' mystery of 'interstellar object' hurtling through solar system at 150,000mph
  • Scientists issue chilling new prediction about when humanity could face its horrifying end