The incredible sizes of our Sun, Planets and other Stars

Most of you have seen "pictures" of our Solar System like these:

...but these are incredibly misleading about both size and distance. Let's take a look at them as they truly compare, starting with Earth, the inner planets, and the dwarf planet Pluto:

Note: Earth's moon is between the size of Pluto and Mercury.

Look close at the above picture before looking at the next. Here are all the planets, shown as their relative sizes:

Note Earth in the lower left. Did you know that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were that much bigger than Earth?  Pretty mind-boggling, huh?

...but we're not done yet. Let's throw the Sun in there:

Wow!  Who can comprehend such incredible size?! But there's more.  Next we put the sun next to some bigger Stars that you may have seen in the night sky.

Here is the Constellation Bootes, which you may have seen in the night sky.  Note the star Arcturus:

:

...and our Sun compared to Arcturus:

We would not be able to show our planets in the above picture, as Jupiter would be just a tiny dot - and the rest of the planets microscopic.

A drum roll is needed before showing you Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is in the Constellation Orion, which you have probably also seen in the night sky.  It is the reddish one in the upper left:

Betelgeuse is so huge that in the below picture, our Sun is just a tiny speck - the size of this period: .

Now that you have a grasp of the relative sizes, check out these true scale models of both size and distance.