Exploration 05 · sourced, order-of-magnitude values
The envelope, measured
Unaided senses cover a few orders of magnitude of length, time and energy. Instruments reach dozens more. Move along each ruler separately — an attosecond and a light-year do not belong on one axis.
Generated landscape
Window centre—
Unaided senses span8orders of magnitude of the 46 that instruments here reach — 18 %
Select a reference on the ruler
- Unaided senses
- Instruments
- Simulation
- Remote operation
- Physical presence
Logarithmic rulers for length (m), time (s) and energy (J) — separate on purpose: an attosecond and a light-year are not on one scale. The shaded band is what unaided senses resolve; bars are the reach of named instruments; marks are sourced references, shaped by how they are accessed. Values are order-of-magnitude roundings (≈). The energy band's upper edge is a judgement, not a sensory limit. Sources and caveats.
All references with sources
| Reference | Value | Access | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| LHC resolving scale | ≈ 10⁻¹⁹ m (100 zm) | Instruments | CERN — The Large Hadron Collider |
| LIGO arm change (GW150914) | ≈ 4 × 10⁻¹⁸ m (4 am) | Instruments | Abbott et al. 2016, PRL 116, 061102 (GW150914) |
| Proton charge radius | ≈ 8.4 × 10⁻¹⁶ m (840 am) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — proton rms charge radius |
| Electron ptychography | ≈ 2 × 10⁻¹¹ m (20 pm) | Instruments | Guinness World Records — Highest resolution microscope |
| Bohr radius (H atom) | ≈ 5.3 × 10⁻¹¹ m (53 pm) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — Bohr radius |
| DNA double helix width | ≈ 2 × 10⁻⁹ m (2 nm) | Instruments | Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell — The Structure and Function of DNA (NCBI) |
| Visible light (green) | ≈ 5.5 × 10⁻⁷ m (550 nm) | Unaided senses | NASA Science — Visible Light |
| Finest detail by eye | ≈ 10⁻⁴ m (100 µm) | Unaided senses | StatPearls — Visual Acuity (NCBI) |
| Adult human height | ≈ 1.7 m (1.7 m) | Unaided senses | NCD-RisC 2016, eLife — A century of trends in adult human height |
| Deepest crewed dive | ≈ 1.1 × 10⁴ m (10.9 km) | Physical presence | Guinness World Records — Deepest dive by a crewed vessel (solo) |
| Earth mean radius | ≈ 6.4 × 10⁶ m (6,370 km) | Instruments | NASA NSSDCA — Earth Fact Sheet |
| Farthest humans (Artemis II) | ≈ 4.1 × 10⁸ m (407,000 km) | Physical presence | NASA — Artemis II Crew Eclipses Record for Farthest Human Spaceflight |
| Sgr A* event horizon | ≈ 1.2 × 10¹⁰ m (12,000,000 km) | Instruments | EHT Collaboration 2022, ApJL 930 L12 — Sgr A* results |
| Earth–Sun distance (1 au) | ≈ 1.5 × 10¹¹ m (1 au) | Instruments | IAU 2012 Resolution B2 |
| Mars rovers (Earth–Mars) | ≈ 2.3 × 10¹¹ m (1.5 au) | Remote operation | NASA Science — Mars Facts |
| Voyager 1 | ≈ 2.6 × 10¹³ m (172 au) | Remote operation | NASA — Where Are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 Now? |
| Proxima Centauri | ≈ 4 × 10¹⁶ m (4.23 light-years) | Instruments | NASA Exoplanet Catalog — Proxima Centauri b |
| Galactic Centre | ≈ 2.5 × 10²⁰ m (0.0264 million light-years) | Instruments | GRAVITY Collaboration 2019, A&A 625, L10 |
| Andromeda Galaxy (M31) | ≈ 2.4 × 10²² m (2.54 million light-years) | Instruments | NASA Hubble — Messier 31 |
| Millennium Simulation box | ≈ 2.1 × 10²⁵ m (2220 million light-years) | Simulation | MPA — The Millennium Simulation Project |
| Farthest galaxy (MoM-z14) | ≈ 3.2 × 10²⁶ m (33800 million light-years) | Instruments | Naidu et al. 2025, arXiv:2505.11263 — MoM-z14 |
| CMB last-scattering surface | ≈ 4.3 × 10²⁶ m (45500 million light-years) | Instruments | Planck Collaboration 2018 VI — Cosmological parameters |
| Observable universe radius | ≈ 4.4 × 10²⁶ m (46500 million light-years) | Instruments | Planck Collaboration 2018 VI — Cosmological parameters |
| Reference | Value | Access | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top quark lifetime | ≈ 5 × 10⁻²⁵ s | Instruments | PDG 2024 — top quark listing |
| Light crossing H₂ (247 zs) | ≈ 2.5 × 10⁻¹⁹ s (247 zs) | Instruments | Grundmann et al. 2020, Science 370, 339 |
| Atomic unit of time | ≈ 2.4 × 10⁻¹⁷ s (24 as) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — atomic unit of time |
| Shortest light pulse (43 as) | ≈ 4.3 × 10⁻¹⁷ s (43 as) | Instruments | Gaumnitz et al. 2017, Optics Express 25, 27506 |
| Green light, one cycle | ≈ 1.8 × 10⁻¹⁵ s (1.8 fs) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — speed of light (exact) |
| Molecular vibration | ≈ 10⁻¹⁴ s (10 fs) | Instruments | Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1999 (Zewail) — press release |
| Caesium clock tick | ≈ 1.1 × 10⁻¹⁰ s (109 ps) | Instruments | BIPM — SI base unit: second |
| Muon lifetime | ≈ 2.2 × 10⁻⁶ s (2.2 µs) | Instruments | PDG 2024 — muon listing |
| 20 kHz tone, one cycle | ≈ 5 × 10⁻⁵ s (50 µs) | Unaided senses | Purves et al., Neuroscience — The Audible Spectrum (NCBI) |
| Longest atomistic MD run | ≈ 10⁻³ s (1 ms) | Simulation | Shaw et al. 2010, Science 330, 341 |
| Flicker fusion (~60 Hz) | ≈ 0.017 s (17 ms) | Unaided senses | Davis et al. 2015, Sci. Rep. 5, 7861 |
| GW150914 chirp | ≈ 0.2 s (200 ms) | Instruments | Abbott et al. 2016, PRL 116, 061102 |
| Resting heartbeat | ≈ 1 s (1 s) | Unaided senses | American Heart Association — All About Heart Rate |
| Sunlight to Earth | ≈ 499 s (8.32 minutes) | Instruments | IAU 2012 Resolution B2 (astronomical unit) |
| Mars one-way signal | ≈ 750 s (12.5 minutes) | Remote operation | NASA Science — Mars Facts |
| Free neutron lifetime | ≈ 880 s (14.7 minutes) | Instruments | PDG 2024 — neutron listing |
| Voyager 1 one-way signal | ≈ 8.6 × 10⁴ s (23.9 hours) | Remote operation | NASA — Where Are Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 Now? |
| Longest single spaceflight | ≈ 3.8 × 10⁷ s (1.2 years) | Physical presence | Guinness World Records — Longest spaceflight |
| Longest verified human life | ≈ 3.9 × 10⁹ s (122 years) | Unaided senses | Guinness World Records — Oldest person ever |
| Homo sapiens exists | ≈ 9.5 × 10¹² s (301 thousand years) | Instruments | Hublin et al. 2017, Nature 546, 289 |
| CMB released (cosmic age) | ≈ 1.2 × 10¹³ s (380 thousand years) | Instruments | NASA WMAP — Tests of Big Bang: The CMB |
| Oldest Earth mineral | ≈ 1.4 × 10¹⁷ s (4.37 billion years) | Instruments | Valley et al. 2014, Nature Geoscience 7, 219 |
| Age of Earth | ≈ 1.4 × 10¹⁷ s (4.53 billion years) | Instruments | USGS — Age of the Earth |
| Age of the universe | ≈ 4.3 × 10¹⁷ s (13.8 billion years) | Instruments | Planck Collaboration 2018 VI — Cosmological parameters |
| Reference | Value | Access | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21-cm hydrogen photon | ≈ 9.4 × 10⁻²⁵ J | Instruments | NIST CODATA — Planck constant (exact) |
| Typical CMB photon | ≈ 10⁻²² J (100 yJ) | Instruments | Fixsen 2009, ApJ 707, 916 — CMB temperature |
| Thermal energy kT at 300 K | ≈ 4.1 × 10⁻²¹ J (4.1 zJ) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — Boltzmann constant (exact) |
| Visible photon (green) | ≈ 3.6 × 10⁻¹⁹ J (360 zJ) | Unaided senses | NIST CODATA — Planck constant (exact) |
| Voyager signal, 1 s at DSN | ≈ 10⁻¹⁸ J (1 aJ) | Remote operation | NASA JPL Education — Hear Here: A Pi in the Sky Math Challenge |
| Ionise a hydrogen atom | ≈ 2.2 × 10⁻¹⁸ J (2.18 aJ) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — Rydberg constant times hc in eV |
| Dimmest flash seen | ≈ 4 × 10⁻¹⁷ J (40 aJ) | Unaided senses | Pugh 2018, J Gen Physiol 150, 383 — retrospective on Hecht et al. |
| Electron rest energy | ≈ 8.2 × 10⁻¹⁴ J (82 fJ) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — electron mass energy equivalent in MeV |
| One U-235 fission | ≈ 3.2 × 10⁻¹¹ J (32 pJ) | Instruments | World Nuclear Association — Physics of Nuclear Energy |
| Proton rest energy | ≈ 1.5 × 10⁻¹⁰ J (150 pJ) | Instruments | NIST CODATA — proton mass energy equivalent in MeV |
| LHC proton collision | ≈ 2.2 × 10⁻⁶ J (2.2 µJ) | Instruments | CERN — The Large Hadron Collider |
| Most energetic neutrino | ≈ 0.035 J (35 mJ) | Instruments | KM3NeT Collaboration 2025, Nature 638, 376 |
| Oh-My-God cosmic ray | ≈ 51 J (51 J) | Instruments | Bird et al. 1995, ApJ 441, 144 |
| Daily food energy | ≈ 8.4 × 10⁶ J (8.4 MJ) | Unaided senses | US FDA — How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label |
| Lightning flash | ≈ 10⁹ J (1 GJ) | Unaided senses | US EPA AP-42 §14.3 — Lightning emissions |
| Fastest human, KE per 80 kg | ≈ 4.9 × 10⁹ J (4.9 GJ) | Physical presence | Guinness World Records — Fastest speed achieved by humans |
| Largest nuclear test | ≈ 2.1 × 10¹⁷ J (210 PJ) | Instruments | CTBTO — 30 October 1961: The Tsar Bomba |
| Humanity's energy, 1 year | ≈ 6 × 10²⁰ J (600 EJ) | Instruments | Energy Institute — Statistical Review of World Energy 2026 |
| Sun's output, 1 second | ≈ 3.8 × 10²⁶ J (380 YJ) | Instruments | IAU 2015 Resolution B3 |
| Supernova blast energy | ≈ 10⁴⁴ J | Simulation | Janka 2012, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 62, 407 (arXiv:1206.2503) |
| Supernova neutrino burst | ≈ 3 × 10⁴⁶ J | Instruments | Janka 2012, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 62, 407 (arXiv:1206.2503) |
| GW150914 radiated energy | ≈ 5.4 × 10⁴⁷ J | Instruments | Abbott et al. 2016, PRL 116, 061102 |
What it shows
How much of each physical dimension is open to direct perception, and how much is reached only through instruments, models, remote machines or presence.
Every reference carries its source. Values are rounded to the order of magnitude and marked ≈; derived values say so in their notes.
What it does not claim
That any of these limits is about to move. Ostrium's interest in the envelope is a direction, not a capability: the question "how much inaccessible reality became accessible this year?" has no registered measurement yet.
That a faster intelligence shortens the light-years. Distances, light-travel times and energy budgets are set by physics; instruments widen what can be observed, not what can be reached. Physics gets the final veto.