1. “Powers of Ten” www.rbkor.net www.youtube.com
Although our Universe is very, very big, the stuff of which it is made is very, very small.

2. “Powers of 10” The biggest: 1 × 1023 ...? The smallest: 1 × 10-15 ...?
100, ,000,000,000,000,000 meters
The largest is far away;
the smallest is within us.
The smallest: 1 × ?
of a meter

3. Within a vast Universe exists a blue marble of light, a “blue dot”, which we call Earth.
Earth floating in a ray of sunshine
a picture by Pioneer spacecraft requested by the late
Carl Sagan

4. 100 = 1 meter (m) 1012 = 1,000,000,000,000 10-3 1 millimeter (mm)
= 3.3 feet (ft)
Our world at arm’s length
1012 = 1,000,000,000,000
1 light-year = 9.46 × km =
1 ly or =
6 trillion miles
millimeter (mm)
~ 10 sheets of copier paper
1023 light years: is the boundary of today’s known uni-verse… and, perhaps, tomorrow’s frontiere.
micrometer (µm)
typical bacteria
To observe the smallest objects in Nature, huge ma-chines whirl atomic particles around at near the speed of light in a 27-kilometer cir-cular tube at CERN in Switzerland.
nanometer (nm)
water molecule
picometer (pm)
atoms
femtometer (fm)
1.7 femtometer
proton in an atomic nucleus
CERN is the birthplace in 1989 of the World Wide Web, colloquially known as the Web.

5. 100 = 1
1 meter = 3.28 feet

6. 101 = 10
The wingspan of an Air Bus A380 is 80 meters (8 × 10 m) or 263 ft.
Air Bus A380 Super Jumbo

7. 102 = 100
The Empire State Build-ing in New York City stands 370 m or 3.7 × 102 m.
103 = 1,000
The Russky Bridge in Vladivostok, Russia has a span of 1,100 m or 1.1 × 103 m.

8. 104 = 10,000 The Earth is 12,742 km in diameter or
104 = 10,000
The Earth is 12,742 km in diameter or
× 104 km (~ 8,000 miles).

9. 105 kilometers = 100,000 km Our Moon is ~3.8 × 108 meters or
3.8 × 105 kilometers (~ 239,000 miles) from Earth. The distance from the Earth to the Moon can also be described as being 1.1 light-seconds.

10. 106 = 1,
The Earth is 150, km or
1.5 × 109 m from the Sun
93,000,000 miles = 8 light-minutes
Our Sun in
ultraviolet
Our Sun in
infra-red

11. 109 = 1,000,000,000 = 1 billion
In this photograph, Earth is 1.44 × 109 kilometers, or ~900 million miles, from Saturn (NASA Cassini: 19 July 2013).

12. 1012 = 1,000,000,000,000
1 light year = 9.46 × 1012 km =
300,000 meters per second
(the speed of light) ×
3,600 seconds in 1 hour ×
24 hours in 1 day ×
365 days in 1 year = 1 light-year
Our closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, is a mere 4.22 ly distant from Earth. Note the reddish color, which indicates a cool star that is very slowly dying.

13. 1015 = 1,000,000,000,000,000 Polaris (North Star) is 4.11 × 1015 km or
~ 434 light-years
from Earth
The North Star, or Pole Star, has been used for millennia to navigate across land and sea.

14. 1017 Milky Way Galaxy 1018 2.55 × 1017 km = 1 × 1018 km = ~27,000 ly
1017 
2.55 × 1017 km =
~27,000 ly
Distance from Earth
to center of
Milky Way Galaxy
1018
1 × 1018 km =
~ 110,000 ly
Diameter of

15. Secrets of space have opened new technologies that can lead to unlimited, clean energy and bountiful natural resources for the ever-adaptive human species.
Ralph Baldasare
PS: the last page of this presentation shows a list of links to other versions of the “Power of Ten”; enjoy.

16. How big is the Universe? At the present time, we can see objects that are 13- to 14-billion light years from Earth, but we do not know if this is the edge of the Universe.

17. Nearly every smudge of light in this Hubble photo is a galaxy
Nearly every smudge of light in this Hubble photo is a galaxy. Choose your galaxy and go in peace.

18. Variations of “Powers of Ten”
Although the IBM version of the “Powers of 10” movie debuted in 1977, an early version was produced in the late 1960s from photographs available from NASA. The “Power of 10” can be viewed at
Powers of 10 -film \
Interactive: The Universe-Solved! Version of
"The Powers of 10"
A more theatrical rendition of the Power of 10 concept can be found at
Zoom-in on some beautiful views of galaxies and nebula at
An inspirational perspective can be found at
Yet another version of “The Powers of Ten”
by RBKOR at
==================================================