The Size of Stuff

North America and Canada is dwarfed by the immensity of Jupiter
Jupiter is the king of the solar system, it has more mass than all the other planets and moons put together, and spans a whopping 88, 846 miles (142, 984 km) at the equator. It is over 11 times the diameter of our planet, with lightening bolts up to 1,000 times more powerful than Earth’s, and wind speeds in the upper atmosphere that can reach 100 metres per second. This planet races around in just 10 hours compared to Earth’s 24, making it the fastest rotating planet in the solar system. The image above shows the gas giant with how North America and Canada would appear to the same scale, it is completely dwarfed by Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging since possibly the year 1665.

How Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io compares to the United States and Canada. Jupiter’s moon Io is the solar system’s most volcanic body, looking like a cheese pizza it would fit between San Francisco and Detroit at 1,942 miles across or 3,636 kilometres. This moon of Jupiter is a similar size as Earth’s own Moon (2,160 miles), so you could do roughly the same size comparison above. Io is tiny compared to Jupiter though, this image shows Io floating above the gas giant’s raging storms far below…far far below in fact, Jupiter is actually 350,000 km away from Io, or roughly 2.5 Jupiters. Io is the first of four main moons to Jupiter, and this is why it is covered in erupting volcanoes. Jupiter’s immense gravity pulls on and flexes Io as it travels around in its orbit. This gravitational influence from jupiter keeps the interior of Io molten and those volcanoes on its surface spewing lava on its surface, and covering its plains in yellow sulphur. Those volcanoes erupt high above the surface, so high that if they were on Earth their volcanic material would go past the International Space Station

How the United States and Canada would measure up to Mars. Earth’s sister planet Mars boasts some huge structures such as Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris, but the planet isn’t actually that big. In the image see how big the United States and Canada would be if it was on the red planet. So if you could take a plane from one side of Mars to the other, it would take probably around 8 hours or so. This rusty desert world orbiting between Earth and Jupiter is only 53% the size of our planet, measuring 4,220 miles (6,792 km) at its equator, band from pole to pole it is 25 miles (40 km) smaller. This is why when viewed in a telescope Mars is always pretty small compared to planets like Jupiter and Saturn for example, although that doesn’t mean you can’t see features on this mysterious world. Through a decent sizes telescope you can see the ice caps and dark and lighter land features.

Martian volcano Olympus Mons would cover the state of Arizona
Mars is actually quite a small world but it does things on a big scale. Located in the Tharsis Montes region of Mars is a volcano, it’s the biggest volcano on Mars, bigger than any volcano on Earth, in fact it’s the biggest volcano in the whole solar system. The volcano in question is called Olympus Mons, an extinct shield volcano with a truly colossal size. See how it appears on Mars in this Nasa illustration (above centre). On the image above you can see how it would appear if it was in the state of Arizona. Taller than 3 Mount Everest’s above sea level, this monster volcano actually would be Arizona as it completely covers it.
It is 374 miles (624 km) across, it towers 16 miles into the martian sky, and is rimmed by a 4 mile high cliff. At the summit of this colossal structure is the caldera at 50 miles across, easily seen in the image above. Olympus Mons has other volcanic company, in the Tharsis Montes region are three other smaller volcanoes Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons that form a line to Olympus Mons’ south east.

By John Brady