All (known) Bodies in the Solar System Larger than 200 Miles in Diameter

Update 04.02.07

31 Comments +

It's just one of those things I've been itching to make for a long while, frankly because I wanted to see it - a visual listing of objects in the Solar System, ordered by size. A couple weeks ago, I started tinkering with it, today, I have something to show finally: A (large) image showing the 88 known objects in our Solar System that are larger than 200 miles in diameter.When making it, the first questions were about limits - there are hundreds of thousands of asteroids, do I really want to make an image that big - would it even be useful? No, likely not, so where does one draw the line? I chose the Earth as the visual axis, placing it full-disc at 1000 pixels. The larger planets and Sun just bleed off the page, but still give a sense of scale by the visible curve of their limbs. And where to cut it off on the small end? Why 200 miles? Well, that's entirely arbitrary. It so happens that I have a fondness for Saturn's moon Mimas (247 miles across), and 200 was the next round number down. That simple. Also, it captures a fair percentage of known Trans-Neptunian Objects (51), enough to give a good idea of their place in the larger scheme of things.After the parameters were chosen, it was a matter of digging up images where possible (photographic or artistic), laying it all out and labeling it. This was the largest photoshop image I've ever made - around 170 layers total. It feels good to build info visualizations like this again, I hope to do more in the near future.Many thanks to the Wikipedia contributors who made this page: List of solar system objects by radius, it was an excellent resource.: Added two other versions of the same image, Metric Only - All (known) Bodies in the Solar System Larger than 320 Kilometers in Diameter, and No Text Labels - For those who just want to see these objects in a line. I'm very happy that this image has been so well-received. (And, enough with the Uranus jokes, sheesh.)