The Solar System To Scale In This Epic Video
Weve probably all seen the early 90s of version of Bill Nyes scale model of the solar system where he rides his bike to the different planets.
Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet have created a modern version of a scale model of the solar system. Every picture you have ever seen of the solar system has limitations due to the size and space between the planets, but they have captured the scale model beatifically with their model.
This video would be a great way to introduce the planets in your class. The high-quality production is engaging and the length of the video is perfect for students attention span.
Filmmakers Show The Scale Of The Solar System In Amazing Video
If Earth were as small as a marble, the solar system out to Neptune would cover an area the size of San Francisco and that’s just in two dimensions.
That point is driven home by a new video called “To Scale: The Solar System,” which shows filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh, along with a few of their friends, building a size-accurate model of our cosmic backyard in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.
The project aims to provide a rare piece of perspective about Earth’s neighborhood, team members said.
“If you put the orbits to scale on a piece of paper, the planets become microscopic, and you won’t be able to see them,” Overstreet says in the 7-minute video, which has been viewed more than 1.4 million times since it was posted on YouTube Sept. 16. “There is literally not an image that adequately shows you what it actually looks like from out there. The only way to see a scale model of the solar system is to build one.”
So that’s what Overstreet, Gorosh and the rest of the group decided to do. They constructed their miniature solar system on a sunbaked playa in the Black Rock Desert over the course of 36 hours, marking out the planets’ orbits by dragging sections of chain-link fence behind a vehicle.
The sun at the center of this newly constructed solar system is about 5 feet wide. Mercury sits 224 feet away from our star, while Venus, Earth and lie 447 feet , 579 feet and 881 from the sun, respectively.
Scale Model Solar System Launches At 1st Ave Walking Trail
Lake Charles, La. – Visitors to the 1st Avenue Walking Trail in Lake Charles can now enjoy a self-guided tour of the solar system.
The Voyage Mark II exhibit is a 10-billion-to-one scale model of the solar system that has been installed in cities around the country.
The exhibit features 13 educational stations, beginning near the intersection of 1st Avenue and 5th Street and ending at 10th Street. It is funded by a grant application filed on behalf of the Region 5 STEM Center and the Calcasieu Parish School Board.
The City of Lake Charles provided the exhibit site as well as installation and other support services.
Community leaders gathered at the walking trail to celebrate the installation of the exhibit.
When the Calcasieu Parish School Board and Region 5 STEM Center approached us about their desire to apply for this grant, providing the 1st Avenue Walking Trail as a host site was a no-brainer, said Mayor Nic Hunter. Not only is the trail utilized by a number of community members, but it is also located within walking distance of three educational facilities. We see great potential for the 1st Avenue Walking Trail and this project will help serve as a catalyst for future community events and programming.
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Make A Scale Model Of The Solar System And Learn The Real Definition Of Space
- Fill in the diameter of the Sun you want your model to be scaled by. You can fill in either the red bordered inches box or the green bordered millimeters box. Important: Only fill in one box. If both are filled in you will get a dialog box asking you to clear one of the boxes. Use the Clear button to clear the entire form.
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I’ve only given you the sizes and distances to the planets. If you’d like to see the satellites of the planets as well, for a much more extensive page
Solar System Calculator Resources
If you need a solar system scale model calculator to help you as you are working on these activities with your class, Ive got you covered. You can find one through Think Zone that also helps you create a map or this resource, Build a Solar System Model, that contains not only a calculator but lots of other great resources to help you too! Youll definitely want to check both of those resources out.
If youre looking for other great solar system resources to supplement your solar system unit, check out my solar system resources on Teachers Pay Teachers here.
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Making Your Solar System Model To Scale
As the distances between the Solar System planets are so big, its almost impossible to have both accurate planet sizes and distances in one scale model.
If we scaled the distances based on the Suns size we used in this model, Neptune would be half a kilometre away!
This is not something you can squeeze into most gardens.
For this project, we are creating a model that shows the distances at a scale that can fit into a garden or park.
The radius of our Solar System has been scaled down to 10m. If our Sun and planets were at the same scale, the Sun would have a diameter of 3cm, but Mercury would be a microscopic 0.1mm, Earth 0.2mm and the largest planet Jupiter just 3mm.
Obviously we cant replicate that for our model. Instead, well be using polystyrene balls of different sizes to show that the planets vary in diameter, but they arent at any specific scale relative to each other or to the distances.
Well place our planets in a straight line, but they would really extend out by 10m in all directions from our star.
The distance between the Sun and the Earth is 150,000,000km this is 1 Astronomical Unit .
To make the maths simple when calculating the distances for our model, begin by working with a scale of 1 AU to 1 metre.
With Neptune at 30 AU, it means the model would be 30m, which is still larger than most gardens. Indeed, we only had 10m to work with.
The distances from the Sun for each of the planets are in our measurements table, which you can .
Calculate Scale Planet Sizes
If you’re making a scale-size model, keep reading for two different methods of calculating the scale sizes of the planets. For a scale-distance model, see Step 4 above.
Calculate manually:
Calculate using a spreadsheet:
Try different values for Earth to make your scale planets larger or smaller depending on the materials you have available to represent the size of each planet.
Once you’ve done your calculations, go to Step 9 to find out how to make a sidewalk chalk scale model. You can also come up with your own creative display using your choice of materials.
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Most Massive Known Objects
The following objects have a mean radius of at least 400 km. It was once expected that any icy body larger than approximately 200 km in radius was likely to be in hydrostatic equilibrium . However, Ceres is the smallest body for which detailed measurements are consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium, whereas Iapetus is the largest icy body that has been found to not be in hydrostatic equilibrium. The known icy moons in this range are all ellipsoidal ” rel=”nofollow”> Proteus), but trans-Neptunian objects up to 450500 km radius may be quite porous.
For simplicity and comparative purposes, the values are manually calculated assuming that the bodies are all spheres. The size of solid bodies does not include an object’s atmosphere. For example, Titan looks bigger than Ganymede, but its solid body is smaller. For the giant planets, the “radius” is defined as the distance from the center at which the atmosphere reaches 1 bar of atmospheric pressure.
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Options For Creating The Solar System Scale Model
Before you get started with models in the classroom, consider asking your students these questions:
- What makes something a model?
- How are the models used?
- Why are the models used?
Then consider having students create their own scaled models first as a way to predict the size and distance. This will make the impact much greater afterward. After creating models , give images of the solar system and discuss why they are inaccurate models.
These options are in no particular order and you do not have to use just one. In fact, creating multiple models will help students comprehend more.
1.) If the Moon Were Only a Pixel Website. I absolutely love this website. Just by simply scrolling this website to the right your students can see how far away everything is in space and their relative sizes. The creator of this website includes a little humor as you are scrolling through his site. Its definitely worth the visit! You can visit the If the Moon Were Only a Pixel Website here.
- Mercury 4,879 km
- Venus 12,104 km
- Earth 12,742 km
- Mars 6,779 km
- Jupiter 139,820km
- Saturn 116, 460 km
- Uranus 50,724 km
- Neptune 49,244 km
- Sun 1.391 Million km
3.) National Geographic Video. In this video, a group of friends works together to create a scale model in 7 miles of the desert. It really helps provide a visual of the distance between planets and their sizes in comparison to one another. The clip is relatively short and would be a great way to introduce the topic to students.
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Choose Where Your Model Solar System Will Go
Pick a place to set up your solar system model. This could be across a bedroom wall, along the floor of a hallway or large room, outside in a yard, or down a sidewalk.
Keep your choice in mind as you calculate the size of planets and distances between them in the next steps. You’ll need to have enough materials, and your model will have to fit within the place you choose.
Instructions for building a model out of beads and string, sidewalk chalk, or yard markers are included below, but you can use any materials or any space you like!
Scale Model Of The Solar System
Carl Sagan once claimed that the most important lesson we learn from studying the stars is perspective. To address this concept, this activity offers a scale model of the solar system to be evaluated. There are many versions of solar system scale models available this one is unique for its large scale chosen, the quality of the scaled objects, and the supplementary materials and information provided. The model is extended to include interaction and discovery on the part of learners, and suggested extensions. The set of materials includes a book about the solar system, developed from NASA’s “From Earth to the Solar System” imagery, and appropriate for use with the model.
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Research With Space Probes
MESSENGER
Reaching Mercury from Earth poses significant technical challenges, because it orbits so much closer to the Sun than Earth. A Mercury-bound spacecraft launched from Earth must travel over 91 million kilometres into the Sun’s gravitational . Mercury has an of 47.4 km/s , whereas Earth’s orbital speed is 29.8 km/s . Therefore, the spacecraft must make a large change in to get to Mercury and then enter orbit, as compared to the delta-v required for, say, .
The liberated by moving down the Sun’s potential well becomes , requiring a delta-v change to do anything other than pass by Mercury. Some portion of this can be provided from a during one or more fly-bys of Venus. To land safely or enter a stable orbit the spacecraft would rely entirely on rocket motors. is ruled out because Mercury has a negligible atmosphere. A trip to Mercury requires more rocket fuel than that required to the Solar System completely. As a result, only three space probes have visited it so far. A proposed alternative approach would use a to attain a Mercury-synchronous orbit around the Sun.
On March 24, 1975, just eight days after its final close approach, ran out of fuel. Because its orbit could no longer be accurately controlled, mission controllers instructed the probe to shut down. is thought to be still orbiting the Sun, passing close to Mercury every few months.
MESSENGER
MESSENGER
BepiColombo
Magnetic Field And Core
In 1967, found Venus’s to be much weaker than that of Earth. This magnetic field is induced by an interaction between the and the , rather than by an internal as in the Earth’s . Venus’s small provides negligible protection to the atmosphere against .
The lack of an intrinsic magnetic field at Venus was surprising, given that it is similar to Earth in size and was expected also to contain a dynamo at its core. A dynamo requires three things: a liquid, rotation, and . The core is thought to be electrically conductive and, although its rotation is often thought to be too slow, simulations show it is adequate to produce a dynamo. This implies that the dynamo is missing because of a lack of convection in Venus’s core. On Earth, convection occurs in the liquid outer layer of the core because the bottom of the liquid layer is much higher in temperature than the top. On Venus, a global resurfacing event may have shut down plate tectonics and led to a reduced through the crust. This effect would cause the mantle temperature to increase, thereby reducing the heat flux out of the core. As a result, no internal geodynamo is available to drive a magnetic field. Instead, the heat from the core is reheating the crust.
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Become A Voyage Community
One of the major goals of the Voyage project is to make the educational experience of walking a scale model solar system available to everyone. The siting on the National Mall may reach several million people per year, but we hope to reach even more people by building customized Voyage installations in communities around the world. If you are interested in building a Voyage exhibit in your community, please read the information at the official voyage site if you have questions, contact me and I will direct you to the appropriate people.
Procedure: Scale Model Of Distances From Sun
- Permanent Marker
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Voyage Scale Model Solar System
The Voyage Scale Model Solar System in Washington, DC. This photo shows the authors family at the model Sun, which is the gold-colored sphere. Looking into the distance you can see the pedestals for the inner planets. The National Air and Space Museum is on the left.
Voyage exhibits now open in Kansas City and Houston! to learn more about becoming a Voyage community.
The Voyage scale model solar system opened in October, 2001 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Voyage depicts the Sun, the planets, and the distances between them all on the same scale of 1 to 10 billion, giving visitors a real sense of the vastness of our solar system . In this way, visitors get a unique perspective on the beauty and fragility of our home planet, on the challenges and triumphs of space exploration, and on the remarkable fact that our species has managed to learn about other worlds. The models, text, and images that constitute the exhibit are designed to make visitors feel like explorers themselves, so that all humans can share in the great adventure of space exploration.
The Voyage exhibit was developed by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, the Smithsonian Institution, and NASA. It is now managed by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education.
