"The fireball that we rode was moving
 But now we've got a new machine
 Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah the freaks said
 Man those cats can really swing
 They got music in their solar system
 They've rocked around the Milky Way
 They dance around the Borealice
 They're Space Truckin' everyday"
— Deep Purple

I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over the next two months. I started small and am working my way up.

10¹⁴ MAGNITUDE
100,000,000,000,000 m
100 Billion Kilometers

The Solar System

287 Billion Kilometers

It’s been said that it’s sad when someone leaves home unless they’re just going out for cookies. We are indeed leaving our neighborhood as we continue our journey, but alas not for cookies.

The solar system comprises the sun (99.86% of the system’s mass) and the objects orbiting it, formed from the collapse of a molecular cloud 4.5 billion years ago. The inner planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are primarily composed of rock and metal while the outer planets (gas giants) are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium (Jupiter and Saturn) and ices (Uranus and Neptune). Formerly the ninth planet, Pluto is now one of the five dwarf planets in the system.

Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.

Previous posts on this topic include:

• 10^-15 Protons and Neutrons
• 10^-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
• 10^-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
• 10^-12 Gamma Rays
• 10^-11 Fluorine Ion
• 10^-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
• 10^-9 Carbon Nanotubes
• 10^-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
• 10^-7 HIV Virus
• 10^-6 Red Blood Cells
• 10^-5 Sand
• 10^-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
• 10^-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
• 10^-2 Lego
• 10^-1 Prosthetic Fairing
• 10⁰ Biome Concept Car
• 10¹ Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
• 10² Shanghai Tower
• 10³ Bay Bridge
• 10⁴ Masdar City
• 10⁵ Palm Islands
• 10⁶ The Moon
• 10⁷ Earth
• 10⁸ Jupiter
• 10⁹ The Sun
• 10¹⁰ Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
• 10¹¹ Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
• 10¹² Distance from Pluto to the Sun
• 10¹³ Voyager 2

Future blog posts will cover:

• 10¹⁵ Cat's Eye Nebula
• 10¹⁶ Pillars of Creation
• 10¹⁷ Great Orion Nebula
• 10¹⁸ M15 Globular Cluster
• 10¹⁹ Sagitarius Dwarf Galaxy
• 10²⁰ Trangulum Galaxy
• 10²¹ The Milky Way
• 10²² IC 1101
• 10²³ Local Group of Galaxies
• 10²⁴ The Local Supercluster
• 10²⁵ 3C 273
• 10²⁶ Outer Limit of the Universe

Measurement is alive in the lab.