482: Height

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Height

Title text: Interestingly, on a true vertical log plot, I think the Eiffel Tower's sides would really be straight lines.

Explanation

The comic contains a chart shows several objects in the universe, from farthest (top) to closest (bottom) on a logarithmic scale. The comic starts with Black Hat throwing a cat off the edge of the universe, probably a reference to Schrodinger's cat. The top of the universe is shown as the distance from which the oldest rays of light reach Earth. Several celestial objects are shown for scale, and some fictional ones. The latter include, from top to bottom:

• Ford Prefect, character from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (franchise).
• The Romulan Neutral Zone, marking the edge of the Star Trek Federation.
• Catonakeyboardinspace.
• Federation Sector 0-0-1, the sector of space assigned to earth in Star Trek.
• "missing winds", a common newspaper headline at the time the comic was published.
• A comet scheduled to hit earth in 2063, to coincide with the latest date for the Biblically prophesized end of the world. 1 (fictionality disputed; included here for legibility.)
• Life on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, which may or may not exist given that they seem to have all the necessary conditions to harbor it.
• The Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• A spaceplane finding a bowl of salt. (disputed, see below.)
• Cory Doctrow's balloon. (first referenced in 239.)
• Cueball, who is apparently still using Python as shown in comic 353.

Some theories about the spaceplane finding the bowl of salt:

• A bowl left behind by the Planet Express spaceplane in a Futurama episode which Fry refers to as "a big heaping bowl of salt."
• The Quasi-elemental plane of Salt from the Inner Plane in Dungeons and Dragons.
• The Great Salt Vampire from Star Trek TOS 2.

Non-fictional points of note:

• Eris, a star named after the goddess of discord.
• Pluto, demoded from planet status.

Transcript

[Map of the universe from observable universe to Earth. Each area of item is labelled.]

Lables [Left to Right, Up to Down]:

[Man in Hat is throwing a black kitty down] Black Cat: mrowl!

Top of Observable Universe

46 Billion Light Years Up

Hubble Deep Field Objects

-One Billion Light Years-

Great Attractor

Antanne Galaxies (Colliding)

Andromeda

Holy Crap Lots of Space

- One Million Light Years-

Magellanic Clouds

Edge of Galaxy

Galactic Center

Crab Nebula

Orion Nebula

Horsehead Nebula

Romulan Neutral Zone

The PLEIADS, Duh.

Rigel

Bete (Geuse)

Ford Prefect

- Expanding Shell of Radio Transmissions [Arrows are pointing up] -

Edge of Federation Sector 0-0-1

Pollux

Arcturus

Missing Winds

Alpha Centauri

Sirius

Barnard's Star

- One Parsec -

- One Light Year -

Oort Cloud (?)

Bupkis

Comet Which will destroy Earth in late 2063

Pioneer 10

Eris (All hail Discordia!)

Voyager I

Pluto (Not a planet. Neener neener.)

Neptune

Uranus

Saturn

Asteroids

<~life~>

Jupiter

Venus

Mars

Sun

Mercury

Aircraft: Hey a heaping bowl of salt!

"Open the fridge door, Hal."

Moon

Human Altitude Record (Apollo 13)

2nd Place: Snoop Dogg

Space Elevator - One of these days, promise!

- Geosynchronous Orbit-

GPS Satellites

Aircraft 2: I have no idea how to land

Aircraft 2[continued]: In retrospect, they shouldn't have sent a poet

International Space Station

Space Junk

- Official Edge of Space (100 km) -

Meteors

- 1

10 ATM -

High Altitude Balloons

Airliners

- 1

2 ATM -

Cory Doctrow

Shuttle Columbia Lost

Everest

Helicoptors

Man: Woo Python!

- 800 m -

- 1 km -

[Height progressivly gets smaller and smaller]

Burj Dubai (~800 m)

Eiffel Tower (325 m)

Kites

Great Pyramid (140 m)

Redwood (115 m)

Pop Fly

Oak (20 m)

"Hey Squirrels!"

Tallest Stilts

Brachiosaur (13 m)

Giraffe (8 m)

[A man and a woman] Folks

The Observable Universe, from Top to Bottom ~ On a log scale~

Sizes are not to scale, but heights above the Earth's surface are accurate on a log scale (that is, each step up is double the height.)

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