It excludes gas giants, such as Jupiter, since they do not have any solid land but includes moons, asteroids, comets, etc.
In alphabetical order, surface areas included are:
- All Human Skin
- Ariel
- Asteroids (1km+)
- Asteroids (100m+)
- Callisto
- Ceres
- Charon
- Dione
- Earth
- Enceladus
- Eris
- Europa
- Ganymede
- Haumea
- Iapetus
- Io
- Makemake
- Mars
- Mercury
- Miranda
- Oberon
- Pluto
- Rhea
- Tethys
- The Moon
- Titania
- Triton
- Umbriel
- Various small moons, comets, etc.
- Venus
- Vesta
and here’s a modified version which shows the Earth’s land and water more clearly:
More XKCD maps:
- The World According to Americans (Who Really Know Their Geography)
- How To “Improve” The Map of The United States By Cleaning Up Some State Borders
- How To Date An Undated World Map
- What Would Happen If You Pulled A 10m Plug In The Mariana Trench
- 8 Really Bad Map Projections From XKCD
- Map Projections & What They Say About You
- Now Time Map
- XKCD Explains The Cause Of Landscape Features Of The United States
You can buy Randall Munroe’s books here:
- What If?
- What If? 2
- How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems
- Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words
- xkcd: volume 0
- XKCD Explains The Cause Of Landscape Features Of The United States
To learn more about our solar system have a look at the following books:
- The Planets: The Definitive Visual Guide to Our Solar System
- The Solar System 10th Edition
- National Geographic Kids Space Encyclopedia
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Voltaire says
Where are Jupiter and Neptune?
jtr says
Jupiter’s surface is liquid hydrogen (not solid). Neptune’s surface is water and ice. This is excluding gases, of course.
nobody says
The oceans of Earth are on the map and they are not solid, so why isn’t Neptune’s water and ice on the map.
Mo says
Because the ocean floor is solid.
JD Stillwater says
I wondered about this until I saw the list of surface areas represented includes “all human skin.”
Robert says
Jupiter surface is actually a metallic substance and is not a gas too much pressure for that. And more than likely a Rocky core.
Agronopolos says
and Pluto?
Jason Zagami says
You neglect the comets, and they dwarf other surface masses.
Number of comets: N=1.4×10^12
Each comet is approximately spherical
Surface area: A=4πr^2
Estimates at different average sizes
Average diameter Area per comet Combined surface area Equivalent Earths
1 km 3.14 km² 4.4×10^12 4.4×10^12 km² about 8,600
2 km 12.57 km² 1.76×10^13 1.76×10^13 km² about 34,500
5 km 78.54 km² 1.10×10^14 1.10×10^14 km² about 216,000
10 km 314.16 km² 4.40×10^14 4.40×10^14 km² about 862,000
Best single estimate
If we adopt an average diameter of approximately 2 km, the combined surface area would be:
1.8×10^13 km2
That is approximately:
18 trillion square kilometres
35,000 times Earth’s total surface area