Okay, now THAT is mind-blowing. I can't even wrap my mind around some of the distances in our own solar system, much less something 270 million light years across. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be an astrophysicist?
Such distances are beyond intuition, but I doubt it's something you can't do. You can just imagine yourself walking to a park, just really far away, and you travel really fast. Speaking of which, many people use this "pea in a football field" analogy when talking about electron orbits, but I'm guessing that few if any people can actually visualize such a thing.
I hadn't heard the "pea in a football field" one. As a former marching band geek who knows well how big a football field is, that definitely helps get some perspective.
OK, everyone who complains about crap articles and xkcd comics, here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is and give some upvotes and comments to an awesome article, to get it on the front page. pg's algorithms reward activity, so give activity to the kind of stuff you want more of!
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