Aylesbury Astronomical Society
Registered Charity Number 276313
Site Updated: 05 May 2012 @ 22:19:55
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Our Solar system is a big place, when you see drawings of the solar system – like the one above – they are not to scale as the drawings would be too big to fit on a page or the planets drawn so small you would not be able to see them. To give you some idea of just how big, let’s try to build a scale model
To represent the Sun, our nearest star, let’s choose a football, and we will place it at the base of the tree outside the front door of MacDonald’s on Aylesbury High Street
The first planet is Mercury, the one closest to the sun. Take 8 good paces down the High St and take a pin-head, filed down to half it’s size, and place it on the pavement
Take a further 8 paces away from the football and place a full pinhead on the pavement, this is Venus
And now us, the Earth, take another pinhead and pace another 7 paces away from the football. Place it on the pavement
Take another 11 paces and place half a pinhead on the pavement, this is Mars. You should now be close to the Mendoza Coffee Bar
Go back to the football which represents our Sun. Can you see any of the “planets” you have placed on the pavement?
We have only done what are known as the inner planets, so let’s continue. Go back to Mars and,
- Jupiter – take another 80 paces and place a plum
- Saturn – take another 103 paces and place another plum
- Uranus – take another 207 paces and place a grape
- Neptune – take another 234 paces and place another grape
You should now be up next to the Tesco roundabout on the Tring road and of course I don’t expect you too really pace this out, the traffic alone would be a problem so I have marked it out on a Google Earth map
Our Solar System - to scale
