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• Talk about what a solar system model that demonstrates the relative average distances between the planets and the Sun and the relative sizes of the planets would look like. Save your Solar System Statistics cards for future activities.
Using a strip of paper, construct a quick scale model of the distances between the orbits of the planets, the Asteroid Belt, and Pluto as part of the Kuiper Belt. Topics Covered • Scaled distances of orbits in the Solar System • Types of objects in the Solar System • Usefulness of models Participants
Download the Scale Size and Distance Spreadsheet (XLSX or CSV) or the Solar System Sizes and Distances reference guide if calculating manually. Decide on the diameter of Earth in your scale model. Keep in mind that a 1-cm Earth means the scale distance from the Sun to Neptune is about two miles.
distance scale 1 cm : 1 astronomical unit (note the mention of lower-case) or 149,597,870.7 km. Provide a simple ruler, a pencil, and an example, and have students make their own to take home. Tape the information onto the back of the sheet, for those who want to keep the actual numbers.
In this activity, students use scale, proportion and/or ratios to develop a scale solar system calculator. Using spreadsheet software, students will determine the size of and/or distances between planets on a solar system model that fits on a playground.
For simplicity, use a scale distance from the Sun to Pluto of 394 cm. Determine the scaling factor by dividing the distance 394 cm by the distance from the Sun to Pluto in AU. 394 cm divided by 39.4 AU is 10 cm/AU. Multiply the scaling factor 10 cm/AU by the actual distance from the Sun to each of the planets in AU.
Although we could print the planet sizes to scale, the paper would need to be way too large to show the scaled distances. Instead, to help you understand the sizes and distances of our solar system, we’ve created a scale model. Our Solar System, real imagery but not to scale.