Enlightening comparisons
How many elephants fit in a cloud? Wild comparisons you won’t believe
Image: David Yu
How much does a cloud weigh? How powerful is the flow of Niagara Falls? How deep is the deepest point of the Grand Canyon? And how far away is the Moon from Earth? Sure, we could give you the straight numbers. Or we could find fun and illustrative ways to put these measurements into perspective, like using basketballs, cars, elephants, and electric toasters. Read on to learn some down-to-earth comparisons of outstanding things!
1
Alaska is so big, it could fit Texas inside twice
Image: Paxson Woelber
Sure, everything’s bigger in Texas… but where does that leave Alaska? The Last Frontier spans about 663,000 square miles , while the Lone Star State covers roughly 268,000 square miles. So yes, you could comfortably fit Texas inside Alaska twice, and still have room left over for California.
2
You could stack 10 Washington Monuments inside the Grand Canyon’s depth
Image: Sonaal Bangera
At its deepest point, the Grand Canyon plunges more than 6,000 feet. That’s more than a mile of height, to give you an idea. To put that in perspective, the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument could fit inside the canyon roughly ten times from top to bottom.
3
The Statue of Liberty’s sandal is the size of a small car.
Image: A n v e s h
Have you ever paid attention to the Statue of Liberty’s feet? Yes, they are visible, right next to the broken shackles at her base. You can’t stand next to the feet, of course, but if you could, you’d see that each sandaled foot measures about 25 feet long , which is a bit over the length of a Chevy Suburban.
4
The Empire State Building was built faster than a modern kitchen remodel
Image: Kit Suman
Did you know that one of the most famous buildings in the world was pretty much speed-built? Construction took just 410 days , starting in 1930 and finishing in 1931. This rapid progress was possible thanks to prefabricated steel parts and a workforce of roughly 3,400 workers each day. Nowadays, your average kitchen renovation takes 6 months to a year.
5
If the Earth were the size of a basketball, the Moon would be a tennis ball 24 feet away
Image: Anne Nygård
This is a fun way to illustrate the relationship between our planet and its satellite. If Earth were the size of a basketball (about 9.5 inches in diameter), the Moon would be roughly the size of a tennis ball (about 2.5 inches).
But they would be a whopping 24 feet away, about the length of a stretch limousine (or a Statue of Liberty sandal). This scale model helps explain just how far apart and disproportionate they really are!
6
A single cloud can weigh as much as 90 elephants
Image: Volodymyr Dobrovolskyy
Clouds may not look heavy, but these giant beauties are surprisingly massive. Scientists estimate that an average fluffy cumulus cloud contains about 1.1 million pounds of water, which is roughly the weight of 90 adult African elephants .
7
You could fit 7 Yankee Stadiums inside the Mall of America
Image: David Vives
With over 5.6 million square feet, the Mall of America is one of the largest indoor spaces in the country . Imagine trying to meet your friends in just one of its 500+ stores!
The mall also features an indoor amusement park and an aquarium. To give you an idea, Yankee Stadium covers roughly 800,000 square feet. You could fit about seven of them within the Mall of America.
8
A hummingbird flaps its wings faster than a car engine runs
Image: James Wainscoat
Hummingbirds beat their wings between 50 and 80 times per second , roughly eight times faster than the revolutions per second of a typical V8 engine at idle. No wonder they have enough force to seemingly fly in place!
9
Comparing lightning bolts with defibrillator shocks
Image: chutipon Pattanatitinon
The energy in lightning bolts can vary, but it’s not uncommon for them to unleash 5 billion joules . Roughly, a biphasic defibrillator delivers about 200 joules in a single shock. And, to give you an idea, it takes roughly 50,000 joules to toast a single slice of bread.
10
Yellowstone sits on top of a supervolcano the size of Rhode Island
Image: Denys Nevozhai
You might have heard of Yellowstone’s supervolcano and how tourists leave mesmerized by the geysers, hot springs, and wildlife.
But the size of its caldera is even more astonishing: it stretches 20 by 45 miles , covering nearly 1,350 square miles. That’s roughly the same area as Rhode Island, the smallest U.S. state.
11
Niagara Falls could fill an Olympic pool in less than a second
Image: Hadi Yazdi Aznaveh
A standard Olympic-size swimming pool holds about 660,000 gallons. Niagara Falls, however, pours roughly 700,000 gallons of water every second, meaning it could fill a pool in under one second, approximately 0.94 seconds to be exact.
If you were filling the same pool with a standard hose, it could take about 19 days .
