Behold! The Scale of Saturn Is Existential Wunder-Nausea!

A few days ago, Phil Plait wrote a pretty righteous post about the scale of Saturn. It was swag as all Cosmic get out, but a reader of Bad Astronomy took it a step further and showed how North America would compare size-wise.

Hit the jump to behold.

Bad Astronomy:

A few days ago, I posted an incredible picture of Saturn taken from Cassini, showing the partially-lit planet and two of its moons. I used this picture to point out the massive scale of Saturn and its moons, something it’s easy to forget when you’re scanning all the amazing images.

BA Bloggee Matt Andrews liked the post, but thought it needed more. He took the picture from Cassini and added a map of the United States to it. I thought it was pretty cool, and so just in case you were having a hard time grasping just how frigging huge Saturn is, this ought to blow you away

[cont]

Ye. GADS. Astonishing, isn’t it? That scale looks about right to me. I know how big the US is; I’ve driven across it several times, and it’s a heckuva trip. To see it dwarfed like this is simply incredible.
So when I post these pictures and talk about how mind-boggingly ginormous these objects are, even the familiar ones, keep this in mind: I’m not kidding. Space is big.