File:Earth with Moon ScaledTo Basketball-Rockets full-court.png
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Summary
editDescriptionEarth with Moon ScaledTo Basketball-Rockets full-court.png |
English: If the Moon is scaled down to the size of an NBA basketball, 9.45 inches in diameter (24 cm) and the Earth is placed on an NBA court under one hoop, then the Earth would be 2 feet 10.65 inches (88 cm) in diameter, which is just a few centimeters larger than an extra large Pilates exercise ball of 85 cm diameter (compare to the hoop inner diameter of 18 inches, or 45.7 cm). The Moon would be found near the hoop on the other side of the court. Because of the Moon's elliptical orbit, it can be as close as 1 foot 5.9 inches (45.5 cm) inside of the hoop center at its perigee out to as far as 3 feet (93 cm) past the baseline at its apogee. The Earth-Moon average distance of 238,900 miles (384,400 km) scales down to 87 feet 1.5 inches (26.55 m) which is nearly 7 feet short of the court's full 94 feet length. Shrinking the Moon down to the size of a basketball results in a scale factor of roughly 14.5 million to 1.
Two circles drawn around the Earth represent the orbit of a GPS satellite (in blue) and a geostationary orbit (in black). If the court is taken to be the ecliptic plane in which the Earth orbits around the Sun, the Earth's rotational axis is tilted at roughly 23.4°. The geostationary orbit represented by the black circle would match this tilt so that it is in the same plane as the equator. The blue GPS orbits are at an inclination of approximately 55° relative to the equator and extend nearly out to the baseline.
It is important to note that lunar trajectories do not happen in the plane of the court because the Moon does not orbit in the ecliptic plane, but is instead inclined by 5.145°. This results in a maximum height out of the plane by 8 feet 2.88 inches (2.511 m). This can be reached by 7 foot 2 inch tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar while holding the Moon-sized basketball 1 foot over his head. (He was drafted into the NBA, first overall pick, three months before the Apollo 11 mission.)
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Author | Tdadamemd |
Other versions |
SunMercuryVenusEarthMoon-Rockets full-court.png - Sun scaled to the size of a basketball
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File history
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Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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current | 02:31, 27 July 2014 | 3,750 × 6,565 (4.23 MB) | Tdadamemd (talk | contribs) | Adding speed of light info. | |
03:08, 9 February 2013 | 3,750 × 6,565 (4.21 MB) | Tdadamemd (talk | contribs) | Several improvements: Images added, along with arrows to the Sun and Mars, scale factor and specific Earth-Moon distances. | ||
17:21, 8 February 2013 | 3,750 × 6,565 (3.55 MB) | Tdadamemd (talk | contribs) | User created page with UploadWizard |
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Horizontal resolution | 37.8 dpc |
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Vertical resolution | 37.8 dpc |
File change date and time | 01:26, 27 July 2014 |