Sydenham, the centre of the universe?

[Checkmate]

A little food for thought, and a bit of fun......

What if Sydenham was indeed the centre of the universe.... well..... the solar system?

Imagine we scaled down the Sun and the rest of the solar system..... Let's make the sun the size of a 1-metre ball and place it ouside the entrance to Sydenham station. Where are the rest of the planets and how big are they?

Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is no bigger than a grain of sand and is near Lloyds bank on the other side of the high street.

The earth is about the size of a grain of rice by the bus stop outside Boots.

The largest planet Jupiter is a grapefruit somewhere near Forest Hill Boys School.

and the furthest planet from the sun, Pluto, is a speck of dust in the Selhurst area.

[mosy]

Tee hee. Since Pluto was declassified as a planet, being one of 70,000 such objects, Selhurst must be awfully dusty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKoRt-6pjAE

I'm wondering where Saturn's halo rings land. Unfortunately nowhere near me as I live nearer the turdis

[Checkmate]

Yes of course Pluto is now a dwarf planet. I could calculate the relative distances of Sedna, Eris Qaoar, Makemake, etc etc from Sydenham station, but I wanted to keep my post relevant to what I (rightly or wrongly) believed to be the site demographic, who grew up with a "Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto" view of the Solar system!

Saturn would be the size of an orange at New Beckenham station....

[mosy]

Oooh! Get you I wasn't casting doubt upon your knowledge, or Selhurst's ability to dispose of 70,000 specks of dust incidentally.

I'm a site demographic having tried to put together an orrery (including Pluto) from London's Science Museum, which also means I must have the patience of a saint. Mind you, if one lives in Sydenham, the patience of a saint for some things goes with the territory

[Checkmate]

Now I have an image of a Croydon roadsweeper single handedly destroying the entire Kuiper Belt

[mosy]

Made me giggle to ROFL stage. I have visions of a jellies-on-a-plate Matrix overseer shaking his head and saying what poor naieve beings we are.

Our Sydenham sun seems to have deserted us though. It must be annoyed with Croydon for wiping out the Kuiper Belt (Or the overseer is.)

[Checkmate]

Any one-metre diameter glowing balls of gas in they Sydenham area would have been well and truly extinguished by this morning's downpour I think. So we have grains of rice down the high street, oranges in New Beckenham and grapefruit in Forest Hill all lost without purpose any more

[mosy]

Thus we must all wander forth determinedly ("To boldly go") - even if aimlessly now (hic).

Where's Mercury? And dark or bright side? Apparently despite science fiction renderings of earlier readings, it does spin on its axis albeit at a glacial rate. If I were to run round in circles, could I keep up - as long as you don't tell me it's a whipping top. Cue whirling dervish.

[Champion]

This is fascinating! Using the same location/scale references where and how big would Eris appear in Sydenham?

[Checkmate]

Eris is a very similar diameter to Pluto, so would be the same grain of sand / bit of dust sized particle.

It's orbital eccentricity is huge, though. At its closes to the Sun, it's a little closer than Pluto is, so we are in the Selhurst area again, but at its furthest away, it would be close to South Croydon railway station