Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps
by Kees Boeke (1957)		 page 22
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17. This seems a very uninteresting picture: it contains no more than one tiny white spot in the center of a black square! That spot, however, stands- for the whole solar system, which on this scale would be only little more than 0.1 millimeter in diameter. In reality this illustration therefore is a very interesting one, because we now know and understand that that little speck of light contains not only the sun, but with it, all the planets, comets, asteroids, and meteorites which move around it . . . and their orbits! And we now realize that it is quite possible that numberless other stars that we see at night may have such satellites moving around them. All other stars that could be seen besides our sun are still left out, as our aim is primarily to show our own "immediate surroundings." Light, on this scale, would travel 9.46 centimeters, or about 4 inches, in a year.

1 cm. in picture = 1017 cm. 1 light-year = 9.46 cm. Scale = 1:1017

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This content is from Kees Boeke's book, Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps. It has been placed online without permission.
Copyright (C) 1957 by Kees Boeke. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photo-copying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission.