why do things look smaller when they are far away?
477266
It's easier to draw than to explain. But the size of the object you are looking at depends on the angle of the light from the top and the bottom of the object as it enters your eye.. The bigger the angle, the bigger it appears to you. \nSo.. a 20 metre high tree looks quite big 100 metres away, but a kilometer away it looks much smaller. The tree is the same height but the angle of the light from the top and the bottom is a lot smaller.
352179
hmm... i'm not sure but i have decreased the distance between two objects!
271369
Under ideal conditions such as no smoke, smog, dust, in a flat area, we should be able to see till infinity. Everytime you gaze at the night sky, you see stars millions and billions of miles away. However, you won't be able to see an object, say a golf ball, that is a mile away.  This is because our ability to see things is limited by the resolution of our eyes i.e. how small an object we can discern. Even though bacteria are all around us, we can't see them because they are too small for our eyes to resolve. In the same manner, large objects that are very distant, will also be invisible to us.  However, the earth is not flat, but curved, so the curvature also limits our ability to see distant objects. the higher up you are, the farther away you can see. Even the satellites or astronauts in space can't see more than half the area or circumference of the earth (only one side of it) when they are in space.
568847
By profession, I'm a Land Surveyor, I'm judging the size of things from great distances.  Sometimes a few thousand feet with reasonable accuracy.  It has to be far enough away that I can't distinguish edges before I'll say I can't guess the size.\nAnd the human eye is also capable of splitting (finding the center of an object) with a higher accuracy than you'd believe.  Looking at a circle .3 feet in diameter (a little bigger than the bottom of a pop can), 10 feet away, the healthy human eye can find the center within .006' of actual center (.006' is about the thickness of your credit card.)
672737
Must be the perspective. They should actually look smaller (further away) because of the extra distance the light travels from the muscles to the mirror to your eyes.
497775
Stars, except for the Sun, although they may be millions of miles in diameter, are very far away.  They appear as point sources even when viewed by telescopes.  The planets in our solar system, much smaller than stars, are closer and can be resolved as disks with a little bit of magnification (field binoculars, for example).\n\nSince the Earth's atmosphere is turbulent, all images viewed up through it tend to "swim."  The result of this is that sometimes a single point in object space gets mapped to two or more points in image space, and also sometimes a single point in object space does not get mapped into any point in image space.  When a star's single point in object space fails to map to at least one point in image space, the star seems to disappear temporarily.  This does not mean the star's light is lost for that moment.  It just means that it didn't get to your eye, it went somewhere else.\n\nSince planets represent several points in object space, it is highly likely that one or more points in the planet's object space get mapped to a points in image space, and the planet's image never winks out.  Each individual ray is twinkling away as badly as any star, but when all of those individual rays are viewed together, the next effect is averaged out to something considerably steadier.\n\nThe result is that stars tend to twinkle, and planets do not.  Other extended objects in space, even very far ones like nebulae, do not twinkle if they are sufficiently large that they have non-zero apparent diameter when viewed from the Earth.
224679
No, because you can always make something smaller. Although lengths shorter that the Planck length (1.62e-35 meters) don't make physical sense.
66085
Earth is around, you know that. An aero plan has to fly around and it would be flying thousands of kilometers away from you.\n\n It would appear that the plane is flying so slowly. But if you see an aero plane that is flying on low altitude that would appear to be faster.\n\nSky is so wide, you can see larger area if you look further and further you can see more wide angle. \n\nIt is not same as if it is closer to you, the distance would be very small. If it is far distance is greater.
343774
I think this is because we see everything inside a virtual cone (actually 2 cones one for each eye, but assuming one for simplicity) ... \nLight enters our eyes (tip of the cone) from each direction which fall into our field of view or cone of view, just like it happens in a camera... when an object moves away it moves towards the open or wider side of the cone so it appears smaller as compared to its previous position (think with respect to the cone)... \nThis would not be the case if we had a plane vision (like when all the rays which entered our eyes were parallel to each other, but for that to happen the eyes would have to be very wide and flat, like in a flat bed scanner)...\nHope this answers your question...
123930
Atmospheric distortions causes difficulties in truly viewing far away objects and the farther they are the greater the distortion. That is why observatories are often built high up in mountains to lessen interference from atmosphere as well as light pollution. Ideally satellites are left in orbit in space function best of all without these influences and the best pictures taken of stars and galaxies are achieved by these.
1157098
No, there's nothign wrong.  As you shrink an image, it will appear fuzzy as it has to remove pixels to account for the size difference. If you expand your image back to it's original state, you'll notice it won't look the same anymore, as pixels have been removed.
1187206
what was the reason for this ? of course they don't' have smaller
921474
Because it does not pass between where you are and the moon, or between the sun and the moon (and if it did I would think it would be so small on such a bright field any shadow would be lost in the 'blur' and distance)
1077904
Because of density... the atmostphere acts as a MAGNIFYING GLASS...
700811
This is because the earth is so large - relatively - as compared to our size. While standing on the earth, we are unable to see the change in slope of the earth's surface. Our line of sight will make it seem as if the earth is flat, but our sight is really a tangent, being very close to the line of the earth's surface. An example of this is when look out at the ocean, and see the masts of a ship first in the distant horizon. This is because at that distance, the curve of the earth is more prominent.
626305
Because you can read/see something better through a smaller hole. It's just like making a small circle with your index finger and thumb, if you look through it you can see a lot better!
1091336
Things would weigh less than on earth\n\nst