A scale model of our solar system

For obvious reasons I can't post a scale model of our solar system here in this thread do to size restrictions , but I can post an interesting link that I found that does show an actual scale model picture of our system www.phrenopolis.com...

This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here. The planets are shown in corresponding scale. Unlike most models, which are compressed for viewing convenience, the planets here are also shown at their true-to-scale average distances from the Sun. That makes this page rather large

I absolutely LOVE these size comparison things when they show space, molecules, land masses, etc.

This one was especially fun, pretending I was flying to pluto as little dots zipped by.

Thank you so much.

s&f

reply to post by Mr Mask


Funny you mention " zipping " . I was thinking , it takes light from the sun 8 min to reach us here on earth and if we were to move the screen from the Sun tto the Earth so that it took us 8 min. We would be zipping along at a scaled light speed , pretty cool

This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here. The planets are shown in corresponding scale. Unlike most models, which are compressed for viewing convenience, the planets here are also shown at their true-to-scale average distances from the Sun. That makes this page rather large - on an ordinary 72 dpi monitor it's just over half a mile wide, making it possibly one of the largest pages on the web. This means you'll have to do a bit of scrolling if you want to find the planets, but don't despair. They are reasonably bright and labeled, so you can probably catch them flashing by in the blackness even if you are scrolling fairly fast.
(Note: users of older versions of Internet Explorer may not be able to scroll manually all the way to the right edge. If you want to actually see Pluto, you may to clickhere.

www.phrenopolis.com...

Great find, if you delete the ats at the beginning and end of the picture link it should work fine for you, I think the size limit is 640 pixils..

reply to post by Max_TO


It made me peeved off because of the time between the planets i spent scrolling
I think I'd rather watch a video on the scale of things, I'm too lazy to spend all day scrolling.
It does really put it into perspective though, and we are just an atom in the ocean we call the universe.
Really makes you really think, how can people possible think we are the only ones out there?

Cheers
Brady

The computer monitor still distorts it somewhat of course. Nice find beautiful of course.

That was pretty cool, make you realise how big our own solar system is

There is a physical scale model of the solar system in Maine. The sun is located in Presque Isle and the planets are positioned along route 1 with Pluto located in Houlton about 42 miles away. Having traveled past this mockup many times it truly puts the vastness of our solar system in perspective when you can see the size of the planets compared to distance you have travel.

www.noao.edu...

The fact is that the planets are mighty small and the distances between them are almost ridiculously large. To make any representation whose scale is true for the planets sizes and distances, we must go outdoors.

The following exercise could be called a Model, a Walk or a Happening. I have done it more than twenty times with groups of varied ages (once we were televised) or with a single friend; and others, such as elementary-school teachers, have carried it out with these instructions. Since it is simple, it may seem suitable for children only. It can, indeed, be done with children down to the age of seven. Yet it can also be done with a class consisting of professors of astronomy. It will not waste their time. They will discover that what they thought they knew, they now apprehend. To take another extreme, the most uncontrollable high-school students or the most blase college students unfailingly switch on their full attention after the first few paces of the excursion.

There is one other party that may profitably take the planet-walk, and that is yourself, alone. Reading the following description is no substitute: you must go out and take the steps and look at the distances, if the awe is to set in.

First, collect the objects you need. They are:

Sun-any ball, diameter 8.00 inches
Mercury-a pinhead, diameter 0.03 inch
Venus-a peppercorn, diameter 0.08 inch
Earth-a second peppercorn
Mars-a second pinhead
Jupiter-a chestnut or a pecan, diameter 0.90 inch
Saturn-a hazelnut or an acorn, diameter 0.70 inch
Uranus-a peanut or coffeebean, diameter 0.30 inch
Neptune-a second peanut or coffeebean
Pluto- a third pinhead (or smaller, since Pluto is the smallest planet)

10 paces. Call out "Mercury, where are you?" and have the Mercury-bearer put down his card and pinhead, weighting them with a pebble if necessary.
Another 9 paces. Venus puts down her peppercorn.
Another 7 paces. Earth
Another 14 paces. Mars
Another 95 paces to Jupiter
Another 112 paces. Saturn
Another 249 paces. Uranus
Another 281 paces. Neptune
Another 242 paces. Pluto

Amazing these objects are so far from each other and so small in relationship to their vast distances and they are still conected!

The mind blowing thing to all of this is that pluto isn't the end of our solar system , there is still the Orc cloud which is what , 50,000 AU's out ? Simply mind blowing , that's the earths distance from the sun x 50,000

nice find but the sheer size of it made me want to doze of in the middle of it, not a good thing either i'm at work

reply to post by Ashphalt321


Haha , guess it depends on what you do at work