Voyager 1 the most distant human made object has been in space for more than 40 years and it still has not escaped the influence of our sun as of feb.
Solar system scale model object sizes marble earth.
A convenient scale has 1 foot representing 1 million miles.
Calculate the scaled planet diameters and planet sun distances for a solar system model.
In their fantastic model the earth is only the size of a small marble.
1 2020 voyager 1 is about 13 8 billion miles 22 2 billion kilometers from the sun nearly four times the average distance from the sun to icy pluto.
100000000 or sun diameter 10 cm or neptune distance from sun 1000 ft.
Starting with the earth as the size of a marble it turns out you need an area about 7 miles 11 2km to squeeze in the orbit of the outermost planet neptune.
The team used glass spheres lit by leds and some gps calculations to map out the solar system on the dry bed of the black rock desert in nevada.
The vast expanse of the black rock desert gave the crew the space needed to construct a to scale model of the solar system.
There is a lot of empty space out there between the planets.
Our solar system is huge.
In this activity you will make two scale models of the solar system.
An interesting middle school level activity would be to make a more accurate solar system scale model that would fit in the school yard as a follow on project 1.
Scale size 7 5 be able to use information about the scale of the solar system.
Ask the participants how far away should the earth marble be placed to be in scale with the.
Enter scale or diameter or distance select to show table and or map below select options then press calculate.
Solar system scale model.
Construct a scale model of the solar system to familiarize the student with the relative sizes and positions of the planets in the solar system and the vast distances between them and between the sun and other stars.
The instructor will show you 3 model earths to choose from.
Deborah scherrer stanford solar center.
Understanding the size differences of objects in the solar system as well as their correct distances from each other is important.
A scale model uses the same measurement ratios as the real object does.
Which model earth is the correct size scale for our model 2 5m sun.
This same scale has 1000 miles representing 1 light year.
The idea here is to communicate the relative sizes and distances of various objects without getting overly caught up in the accuracy of the comparisons.
The first model will compare the distance the planets are from the sun in astronomical units the other model will compare the size of the planets using diameters in kilometers.