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Chart on the Solar System
Scale Diagram of the Planets and their Orbits
It is difficult to imagine the distances in space. Scale models help, but this approach breaks down when the starting point is too far from our personal experience. Too many layers of translation are involved when we have to imagine the size of our Solar system. We may start with the familiar — the length of a mile or kilometer. Then we must imagine the diameter of the Earth as 12,756 kilometers (7,928 miles). Setting one inch = one mile, we need a circle that is a little over 660 feet across to represent the size of our home planet. Then we need 11 of these 660 foot circles, in a line, to represent the width of Jupiter. If we draw a circle around those 11 Earth circles, we have a new circle about 1.4 miles across representing Jupiter. Then we need to place about 10 of these Jupiter circles in a line to represent the width of our sun. The finished circle repesenting the sun will be about 13.6 miles in diameter. All this from the familiar 1 inch equals 1 mile scale.
The chart of the Solar system, below, starts with our sun set at 5 pixels wide (5 dots on your computer screen). The orbits of the planets are set to this scale. Above, we labored to imagine the size of our sun and now reduce that 13.6 miles to 5 tiny dots on the screen. Beyond this, the size of the Solar system is insignificantly small compared to the average distance between stars. Then, the average distance between stars is insignificant compared to the size of our Milky Way galaxy. And then, the Milky Way is insignificant in size compared to the Local Group of galaxies. And finally, the Local Group is insignificantly tiny compared to the known universe and its billions of galaxies.
The Solar System
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The sun and each planet is shown enlarged at its location in the Solar system. Only the sun is shown actual size at the center of the Solar system. On this scale, the sun is only 5 pixels wide. In the enlarged image of the sun, the planet Jupiter is included for size comparison.
The enlarged image of the sun is a hydrogen alpha photo courtesy www.SunGazer.net,
taken October 27, 2005 1600UT, Rockville, MD, USA.
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The planet Mercury is closest to the sun and thus receives the strongest dose of solar energy. But the honor of "hottest" planet goes to Venus.
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This image of the planet Venus is what one might see with the clouds stripped away. Here we find the hottest planet in the Solar system, because the atmosphere of Venus is a thick greenhouse, locking in the light it receives. At the surface, air pressure is a crushing 90 Earth sea-level atmospheres.
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Home sweet home. This is the planet Earth and its moon, "Luna," or simply the Moon. On this scale, the orbit of the moon is only about 2 pixels across — too small to show here.
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The red planet, Mars is the closest thing we have in the Solar system to a habitable planet outside of Earth. Yet it looks far more like the Moon than anything most of us would feel comfortable calling "home."
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Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar system. The enlarged image of the planet is on a different scale than the other planets, above. The images of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are shown on one scale, while the gas giant worlds, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are shown on a reduced scale. Here, Earth is shown for a size comparison. The single white pixel (the dot on Jupiter's orbit) is too large for the Solar system scale. To match the Solar system scale, the dot would have to be half a pixel across.
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The planet Saturn has been made quite lovely by its vast ring structure effectively doubling the visual size of the planet.
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The planet Uranus is pale blue in color and the coldest planet in the Solar system.
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At the edge of the Solar system, the planet Neptune should be the coldest planet, but that honor goes to its "near-twin," Uranus, because that planet strangely lacks the internal warmth generated by other gas giants.
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This location is the average orbital distance of the dwarf planet Pluto. During a small part of its year, Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune. The original photograph of Pluto and Charon was taken near greatest separation. The image has been modified to represent the actual orbital distance between Pluto and its moon. Earth and its moon are show at the same scale for comparison.
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<<Return to the Solar System page
References:
Astronomy Data Book, by J.H. Robinson & J. Muirden — John Wiley & Sons, New York
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, by D.H. Menzel — 1964, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
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