Length scales table
The range of length scales occurring in the universe is immense! Protons and Neutrons are approximately 10-16 Meters in diameter while the observable universe is estimated to be approximately 4 x 1026 Meters in diameter.
|
Object
|
Size
|
| Atoms and Molecules | |
| Electrons | Experiments suggest the hypothesis that electrons are "point-like particles" in the sense that they lack structure. |
| Protons/Neutrons | 10-6 Angstroms (1 Angstrom = 10-10 Meter) |
| Atomic Nuclei | 10-5 Angstroms |
| Atoms | A few Angstroms |
| Medicine | |
| Smallest viruses (e.g., polio virus) | 300 Angstroms |
| Smallest bacteria (mycoplasmas) | 1,000 Angstroms |
| Largest Viruses (e.g., pox viruses) | 2,500 to 3,000 Angstroms |
| Diameter of the nucleus of the human cell | 2x10-6 to 10-5 Meters |
| Largest Bacteria | 6x10-4 Meters |
| Largest neurons (motor) | About 1 Meter |
| Height of adult human being | A little under 2 Meters on average |
| The length of the DNA material occurring in a the nucleus of a single human cell, assuming the DNA material was stretched out along a straight line | 2 Meters |
| Land, Sea, and Air | |
| Large Hail | A few Centimeters |
| Tornadoes ("radius") | 100 to 600 Meters |
| Top of Troposphere (most weather phenomenon occurs with in the troposphere) | 6 to 17 Kilometers |
| Highest Clouds | 15 to 17 Kilometers |
| Hurricanes | Several hundred Kilometers |
| Top of Stratosphere (the stratosphere is the layer above the troposphere in which the temperature increases) | 50 Kilometers |
| Top of Mesosphere (the mesosphere is the layer above the stratosphere in which the temperature rapidly decreases) | 85 Kilometers |
| Largest recorded height for a Tsunami wave upon reaching land (Lituya Bay, Alaska in 1958) | 525 Meters |
| Deepest point in the oceans (Mariana Trench) | -11,034 Meters |
| Lowest point on land (near the Dead Sea) | More than 300 Meters below sea level |
| Highest point on land (Mount Everest) | 8,850 Meters |
| Thickness of Earth's crust | Oceanic crust: 10 Kilometers
Continental crust: 20 to 90 Kilometers with an average of 35 Kilometers |
| Radius of solid core | 1,300 Kilometers |
| Thickness of liquid core | 2,200 Kilometers |
| Depth of the boundary between the liquid core and the mantle | 2,900 Kilometers |
| Size of continental plates | A few thousand Kilometers |
| Radius of the Earth | 6,378 Kilometers |
| Sizes of Astronomical Objects | |
| Eros | 33 Kilometers |
| Ceres (the largest asteroid) | 933 Kilometers |
| Longest Comet tail ever measured | 5x108 Kilometers! |
| Phobos (one of the two moons of Mars) | 26 by 22 Kilometers |
| Radius of Earth's Moon | 1,738 Kilometers |
| Radius of Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons and the largest moon in our solar system) | 2,631 Kilometers |
| Pluto | 1,160 Kilometers |
| Mars | 3,400 Kilometers |
| Earth | 6,378 Kilometers |
| Jupiter | 71,370 Kilometers |
| Pulsars | 10 Kilometers |
| Our Sun | 7x105 Kilometers |
| Largest known star (UY Scuti) | 1.8 x 109 Kilometers |
| Milky Way (our galaxy) | 100,000 light-years wide (1ly = 9.5 x 1012 Kilometers), but only 1000 light-years thick |
| Estimated present diameter of the observable universe (keep in mind that the Universe is still expanding!) | 92 billion light-years |
| Distances in Astronomy | |
| Distance from the Moon to the Earth | 390,000 Kilometers = 1.3 Light Seconds |
| Distance from the Earth to the Sun | 150,000,000 Kilometers = 8.3 Light Minutes |
| Distance from Jupiter to the Sun | 540,000,000 Kilometers = 30 Light Minutes |
| Mean distance of Pluto from the Sun | 5,913,520,000 Kilometers = 5.5 Light Hours |
| Distance traveled by light in one year | 9.5x1012 Kilometers = 1 Light-Year |
| Distance to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) | 4.3 Light-Years |
| Distance to the center of the Galaxy | Approximately 33,000 Light-Years |
| Distance to the Andromeda Galaxy (the nearest "large" galaxy to ours) | 2,000,000 Light-Years |