Google’s Planet Scale Mistake

I’ve written before about Google showing planet information directly in its search results. Since then Google has begun to highlight information from particular websites more and more. Today I came across a case where this could be considered as a little misleading:

Google Incorrect Planet Sizes

Google is taking the different sizes of some neat looking planet models and using these rather than the planet’s actual sizes. While the relative scale is correct, the Earth is of course slightly larger than the 8.4mm shown here.

Planet Model Sizes

You can currently see this at https://www.google.com/search?q=planets+to+scale or by searching for “planets to scale”. I expect that this will be fixed at some point.

You can find the actual sizes of the planets on the Planet Facts page.

Related space facts:

4 comments

  1. the guestimate of stars in the Milky Way on page 1 does seem rather vague. Astronomers in various discovery space programmes tell us a figure (which I cant remember) that is a lot more precise than 100bn – 400bn. How often do the ‘facts’ get updated?

    good site – thanks

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