Our Solar System is an incredibly beautiful place. It’s a diverse place full of remarkable sights and natural wonders, whether it’s the pockmarked volcanic surface of Mercury, the dusty crimson plains of Mars, the beautiful rings of Saturn, or even the blues and viridians of our own world.
We’d be nowhere without the Sun, to be sure, and artist and illustrator Ron Miller’s series of truly stunning visualizations of our local star – as seen from each planet, including the poor demoted Pluto – serve to remind you of that. He’s spent over 40 years illustrating the dark realms of space, both near and far, and has created the most realistic depictions of the Sun as seen from these distant worlds as possible.
“I’ve taken care in not only making sure the Sun is depicted realistically, but also the surfaces of the planets and satellites as well,” Miller told.
Despite the fact that Pluto is, at its most distant point, 7.5 billion kilometers (roughly 4.7 billion miles) away from Earth, the Sun still looks particularly bright. “While the Sun is smaller, it is still an immensely brilliant source of light,” Miller added. “The light levels on the surfaces around you [on Pluto] would be dusk-like, but the sun itself would still be a very bright object – just a small one.”
The brightness of the Sun is proportional to the square of the relative distance from it, according to physical laws. So, if you are now half as close to the Sun as you were before, the apparent brightness will be a quarter of what it was. (1/2)2 = 1/4, see?
This means that the brightness of the Sun decreases dramatically as you move away from it. The fact that it’s still bright by the time you get to Pluto is a remarkable testament to the sheer power of our nearest thermonuclear stellar furnace.
The Sun as seen from Mercury, which is about 60 million kilometers from the Sun or 39 percent of the distance from Earth to the Sun. On Mercury, the Sun is about three times larger than on Earth.The Sun as seen (almost) from Venus, about 108 million kilometers from the Sun (72% of the distance from Earth to the Sun). Seen from beneath Venus’ dense, sulfuric acid-laden clouds, the Sun is no more than a dimly glowing patch in the perpetual overcast.Earth, which is 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from the Sun. If you’ve ever seen a solar eclipse, this sight will be very familiar to you.Mars orbits the Sun at a distance of 230 million kilometers, or about 1.5 times further than Earth. But it is not the distance that reduces the visibility of the Sun, but the strong winds that carry dust up into the outer confines of atmosphere of the Red Planet.This is what the Sun looks like from Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. It is much, much further away, at 779 million kilometers from the Sun (5.2 times greater than the distance between the Sun and the Earth).The Sun as seen from Saturn, about 1.5 billion kilometers from the Sun. It is about 9.5 times farther than the distance from Earth to the Sun. Here, water and gas crystals, including ammonia, refract sunlight, creating beautiful optical effects such as haloes and sundogs.The Sun as seen from Ariel, one of Uranus’s moons. Uranus is about 2.9 billion kilometers from the Sun, or about 19 times farther than the distance from Earth to the Sun.The Sun as seen from Triton, one of Neptune’s moons. Neptune is about 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun. That’s about 30 times farther than the distance from Earth to the Sun.From the perspective of the planet furthest from our solar system, the Sun is little more than a tiny point of light. Pluto is 6 billion kilometers from the Sun (40 times the distance between it and Earth), which means that the light reaching it is 1600 times weaker than that which we receive here.
Beautiful and very well done. Glad you included poor old Pluto. When we got a close view of it, the planet(oid) seemed much more interesting than it had before.
“the planet furthest from our solar system”
Pluto is still a part of our solar system, and is thus not at all far from it. If you want subscribers, write better!
Beautiful and very well done. Glad you included poor old Pluto. When we got a close view of it, the planet(oid) seemed much more interesting than it had before.
Nice pictures
“the planet furthest from our solar system”
Pluto is still a part of our solar system, and is thus not at all far from it. If you want subscribers, write better!