Year of Space Facts: Week 1/52 🔭🧪🛰️

The Sun is big! Not just in volume but in mass as well. It would take 1.3 million Earths, 987 Jupiters, or 7 nonillion cricket balls to fill the Sun; it would take 12.4 nonillion cricket balls, 332,950 Earths, or 1054 Jupiters to balance the Sun on a scale.

January 06, 2026 - 20:12 UTC

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I don't care about that. Ridiculous units. How many giraffes* fit in the sun? That's my question.

* Neglecting compression due to weight.
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cricket balls? I didn't know that Crickets play with balls.
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Sorry Nora, I passed on your discussion about how many ping pong balls it would take to fill the sun and sent my son the complete library of gaming books. I’m a bit shallow that way.
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Cricket balls is an amazing unit of measure. Can it be used for distance as well?
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Year of Space Facts: Week 2/52 🔭🧪🛰️

Information can't travel faster than light, and the universe is 13.8 Gy old, so the radius of the observable universe is 13.8 Gly, right? Nope! Because of expansion, the current radius of the observable universe is actually 48.5 Gly!
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We cannot know how information is propagated in the Universe and whether there are speeds higher than the speed of light, but we know about supernova explosions and solar flares after some time, which suggests that the speeds are higher than the speed of light, not several orders of magnitude higher
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My mind is now bleeding.
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Isn't it 13.8My, Mega Years?🤔
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Year of Space Facts: Week 3/52 🔭🧪🛰️

Stars can consume their planets if tidal dissipation causes a planet's orbit to decay fast enough. Nom nom. 🌞🌏😋

🖼: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)
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So the Sun is less than twice as dense as a cricket ball!
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That's all interesting and fun, but what really bakes one's noodle, is how many blue whales is that?
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Roughly 22 septillion blue whales by mass... 🐳
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The big takeaway from this post should be how necessary it is to teach people scientific notation. I had to look nonillion up: 10³⁰. Much more sensible and shorter.
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She chunky
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U R Funny!
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Did you see where the measure of the size of Jupiter was reduced a bit?
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That would be a big and fireproof scale. And what provides the gravity to "weigh" these things? Physics is hard!
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The scale would be the balancing act between the sun and the earth’s orbit and mass
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It's a very hypothetical, thought experiment scale 😅
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And about 12 nonillion cricket balls to match the mass of the Sun.
Thank you for having me look up the ammount of 0's in nonillion.
That is why I am on Blue Sky🥳👊
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How many Taco Bell tacos?
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And that's legit weight-- it doesn't retain water.
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Are we referring to the insect or the game?
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The game 😅 I have not done the math for insect gonads
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If you had that many Earths would it collapse into a Newton Star?
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So it's less dense than cricket balls, earths and jupiters? Ima booking a ticket to Arcturus then.
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