Is It Possible to See Earth's Surface from Top to Bottom in One Viewing?

Kathleen Villaluz

Just how big is the planet we are living in? Tremendously ginormous, one might think. Indeed, it truly is but if you're asked to quantify the sheer size of Earth, how would you do it? Where would you even start? And since we've opened up the "how big is Earth?" topic, we might as well explore how much of Earth's surface is visible all at once. Does anyone have the ability or equipment to see our planet's vast surface in just one viewing? Is it possible?

First of all, if someone would make it their goal to view Earth's surface from its top edge to the bottom edge, then their best bet is to probably strap themselves on a satellite. From there, you can perhaps get a good view of the planet's enormous surface, right? Well, not really as even the International Space Station (ISS) doesn't orbit far enough from Earth's surface to catch a large surface area glimpse. Apparently, astronauts that are temporarily based on the ISS can only see 3% of Earth's surface at once.

If you keep watching on, this YouTuber reveals more fun facts about Earth's size and how to gain a perspective on just how massive our planet is. Skip on to 09:14 minutes where he reveals that if approximately 7.5 billion humans on Earth were piled up in one place then it would barely occupy the Grand Canyon.

So, how could one exactly quantify how enormous Earth is? According to this informative video, our planet is composed of 100 Quindecillion atoms. For the sake of not spamming this short article with zeros, a Quindecillion is 1048. And one other mind blowing fact we are presented with is that even the tallest peak on our planet (Mount Everest) barely makes a bump on Earth's surface when measured relative to its size.