If our Sun is a grain of sand, then how big would the Milky Way be?

If we imagine the Sun as a grain of sand, then the Milky Way galaxy would be enormous in comparison. The Milky Way is a vast barred spiral galaxy with a diameter estimated to be about 100,000 to 150,000 light-years.

Assuming the Sun is a grain of sand with a typical diameter of about 0.5 millimeters, we can calculate the size of the Milky Way in this scale:

1. Diameter of the Sun (as a grain of sand): 0.5 millimeters

2. Diameter of the Milky Way (scaled down): Let's use a rough estimate of the Milky Way's diameter as 100,000 light-years.

   Light travels about 5.878625 trillion miles (9.461 trillion kilometers) in one light-year.

   So, the diameter of the Milky Way in our scale is approximately: 100,000 light-years * 5.878625 trillion miles (per light-year) ≈ 5.878625 × 10^20 miles

   Now, let's convert this to millimeters (1 mile ≈ 1,609,344 millimeters): 5.878625 × 10^20 miles * 1,609,344 millimeters/mile ≈ 9.4491187 × 10^26 millimeters

Therefore, if the Sun is a grain of sand, the Milky Way galaxy would be approximately 9.4491187 × 10^26 millimeters in diameter in this scale. This illustrates the vastness of our galaxy compared to the size of the Sun.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model