The scale of everything
How far can
curiosity take you?
Travel through powers of ten. Each step changes the scale by a factor of ten — not a fixed physical distance.
Log scaleEvery whole step is ×1010-1.82 metres
Living things
Honeybee ↗
1.5 cmA 15 mm worker honeybee (Apis mellifera), at the upper end of the cited 10–15 mm worker range. Body length excludes antennae, legs and wings. The 100 mg mass is a separate illustrative assumption.
10⁻³⁰ m10⁻²⁰ m10⁻¹⁰ m10⁰ m10¹⁰ m10²⁰ m
This is a logarithmic journey. The illustrations identify each scale and are not drawn together at true relative size. At the smallest scales, quantum and theoretical concepts have no crisp material outline. At the largest scales, “diameter” can depend on a chosen observational boundary.
Side by side
Unexpected neighbours.
There’s always another scale
Follow your curiosity.
Fundamental physicsPlanck length1.616 × 10⁻³⁵ mThe Planck length is a scale formed from fundamental physical constants.
Fundamental physicsProton1.682 fmA proton is a positively charged particle found in the nucleus of atoms, made up of quarks.
SpaceEarth–Sun distance1 AUThe Earth–Sun distance, or astronomical unit, is the standard measure of separation between Earth and the Sun used in astronomy.
SpaceMilky Way30.66 kpcThe Milky Way is a spiral galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars, including our Solar System.
SpaceObservable universe28.21 GpcThe observable universe is the region from which light or other signals have had time to reach us since the early universe.