Lyceum B - Astronomy - Week 14 - The Sun - Our Solar System
- Mar 2, 2022
- 2 min read
To understand the size differences between planets:
Need 3 peppercorns, 2 peas, 2 plums, 1 large orange and 1 grapefruit
Place in order of size / hold them in your hand to compare
Peppercorn size - Mercury, Pluto, Mars
Pea size - Venus, Earth
Plum size - Uranus, Neptune
Orange size - Saturn
Grapefruit - Jupiter
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Making the Solar System to scale:
You will need a long pole to hang the planets from
Cut four circles for each planet - out of construction paper- make all four circles of a planet out of the same color
Here are the diameters of the “planets”:
Mercury - pink - 3/8 in
Venus - orange - 1 5/8 in
Earth - light blue - 1 5/8 in
Mars - red - 3/4 in
Jupiter - yellow - 19 in
Saturn - crimson - 15 in
Uranus - dark blue - 8 in
Neptune - green - 8 in
Pluto - purple - 1/4 in
Take each of the four circles and fold in half. Put glue on one half of a circle and match it to another half circle.
You can attach strings to the planets in one of three different ways:
Lay all four circles together and sew through all four sheets of paper and then just cut off the string when it is the length you want.
Before glueing one of the half together, lay one end of the string along the center fold that has glue on it and press down the circle half on top firmly.
Or use a pushpin (or small hole punch depending on the diameter of the string you are using) and make a small hole in the top of each planet near the center and tie the string through the hole.
Tie off each planet to the pole in this order (this is the order they orbit around the sun):
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Attach Jupiter first and adjust the distance and length of string for the other planets so they all are positioned relative to Jupiter’s center.
We are not including the Sun because to make the sun to scale, it would need to be 13 feet in diameter.
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Videos:
Professor Dave Explains - Classification of Stars:Spectral Analysis and the H-R Diagram - 7:04 min
Moon Phases: Crash Course Astronomy #4 - 9:45 min
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