Model of the solar system

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A scale scaled model of the solar system is helpful to the relative sizes and distances of objects in our solar system to illustrate.

Structural implementations of such models are at least one, mostly several kilometers, because at an even smaller scale the models of the planets become too small to be seen with the naked eye. The models are usually laid out in the form of hiking trails called the “ planetary trail ”, “planetary hiking trail ” or “planetary educational trail ”.

example

A model on a scale of 1: 1.4 billion can be found with the sun and all planets on many planetary paths. A pedestrian would travel here at about six times the speed of light , which here corresponds to only 21.4 cm / s.

All following sizes are rounded; mean values ​​were used for all distances that actually fluctuate more or less.

  • The diameter of the sun in this model is 1 m.
  • The planet Mercury is 41 m from the Sun and has a diameter of 3.5 mm.
  • The planet Venus is 77 m away from the sun and has a diameter of 8.6 mm.
  • The earth is at a distance of 107 m from the sun and has a diameter of 9.1 mm.
    • The earth's moon is at a distance of 27.5 cm from the earth (just a little less than the height of a DIN A4 sheet of 29.7 cm) and has a diameter of 2.5 mm.
  • The planet Mars is located 163 m from the Sun and has a diameter of 4.9 mm.
    • Phobos is located 6.7 mm from the center of Mars.
    • Deimos is 16.8 mm from the center of Mars.
Both Martian moons have a diameter of about a hundredth of a millimeter and would therefore no longer be visible to the naked eye.
  • The largest object in the asteroid belt , the dwarf planet Ceres , is located 296 m away from the Sun and has a diameter of 0.7 mm.
  • The planet Jupiter is 556 m away from the Sun and has a diameter of 102 mm.
    • Diameter and distances of the four Galilean moons to the center of Jupiter:
      Io : 2.6 mm diameter, 30 cm distance
      Europe : 2.2 mm diameter, 48 cm distance
      Ganymede : 3.8 mm diameter, 76.5 cm distance
      Callisto : 3 , 5 mm diameter, 135 cm distance
    • The 59 other Jupiter moons discovered so far, which are much smaller than the Galilean moons and can hardly be seen in this model, are located between 9.1 cm and 21.4 m from the center of Jupiter.
  • The planet Saturn is located 1019 m from the Sun and has a diameter of 86 mm.
    • The rings of Saturn : The A-ring has an outer diameter of 193 mm and the B-ring of 168 mm. The outermost ring, the E-ring, has an outer diameter of almost 700 mm.
    • The seven largest moons of Saturn and their diameters and distances from the center of Saturn:
      Mimas 0.3 mm diameter, 13.3 cm distance
      Enceladus 0.4 mm diameter, 17 cm distance
      Tethys 0.75 mm diameter, 21 cm distance
      Dione 0.8 mm diameter , 27 cm distance
      Rhea 1.1 mm diameter, 38 cm distance
      Titan 3.7 mm diameter, 87.5 cm distance
      Iapetus 1.0 mm diameter, 255 cm distance
    • The 49 other Saturn moons discovered so far are located between 9.6 cm and 17 m from the center of Saturn and have a maximum diameter of 0.2 mm. Some of them are microscopic on this scale and can no longer be seen with the naked eye.
  • The planet Uranus is at a distance of 2051 m from the sun and has a diameter of 37 mm.
    • The five largest Uranus moons and their diameters and distances from the center of Uranus:
      Miranda 0.4 mm diameter, 9.3 cm distance
      Ariel 0.8 mm diameter, 13.7 cm distance
      Umbriel 0.8 mm diameter, 19 cm distance
      Titania 1.1 mm diameter, 33 cm distance
      Oberon 1.1 mm diameter, 41.6 cm distance
    • The 22 other Uranus moons discovered so far are located between 3.6 cm and 15 m from the center of Uranus and have a maximum diameter of 0.15 mm. Some of them are microscopic on this scale and can no longer be seen with the naked eye.
  • The planet Neptune is at a distance of 3213 m from the sun and has a diameter of 35 mm.
    • The three largest Neptune moons and their diameters and distances from the center of Neptune:
      Proteus 0.3 mm diameter, 8.5 cm distance
      Triton 1.9 mm diameter, 25.3 cm distance
      Nereid 0.25 mm diameter, 396 cm distance
    • The 8 other Neptune moons discovered so far are located between 3.4 cm and 34.7 m from the center of Neptune and have a maximum diameter of 0.15 mm. Some of them are microscopic on this scale and can no longer be seen with the naked eye.
  • The dwarf planet Pluto is at a distance of 4219 m from the sun and has a diameter of 1.6 mm.
    • The three Pluto moons and their diameters and distances from the center of Pluto:
      Charon 0.8 mm diameter, 13.8 mm distance
      Nix 0.1 mm diameter, 36 mm distance
      Hydra 0.1 mm diameter, 47 mm distance
  • The dwarf planet Makemake (unofficially "Easterbunny") is located an average of 4907 m from the Sun and has a diameter of 1.3 mm.
  • The dwarf planet Eris (unofficially "Xena") is located on average at a distance of 14.1 km from the sun and has a diameter of 1.8 mm.
    • Its moon Dysnomia is located 23.7 mm from Eris and has a diameter of 0.25 mm.

Beyond the solar system

  • The closest star, Proxima Centauri (real distance: 4.24 light years), would have a diameter of 14.4 cm in this model and would be 28,800 km away.
  • The Milky Way would have km in diameter 750 million in this model. This is almost the real distance between the Sun and Jupiter, or 5 times the Earth-Sun distance.
  • The observable part of the universe would have a radius of almost 10 light years in this model. This is more than the distance to Sirius .

Other planetary systems

  • As far as we know today, the planetary system with the most exoplanets, Kepler-11 (at least 6 confirmed exoplanets), would be 13.5 million km away from our model sun in this model. The star Kepler-11 would have a diameter of 1.1 m. The diameters of the individual planets would be between 18 cm (Kepler-11b) and 41 cm (Kepler-11e). The planets would be between 10 m (Kepler-11b) and 49 m (Kepler-11g) away from Kepler-11, with the 5 inner planets within a distance of 27 m from the central star and thus within Mercury's orbit (41 m) in comparison with our solar system.
  • The double star system 55 Cancri with 5 confirmed exoplanets would be 276,000 km away from our model sun in this model. The yellow dwarf 55 Cancri A would have a diameter of 96 cm, its companion, the red dwarf 55 Cancri B, would be at a distance of 114 km and would have a diameter of 30 cm. The innermost planet 55 Cancri e would have a distance of 170 cm, 55 Cancri b of 12 m, 55 Cancri c of 27 m, 55 Cancri f of 23 m and 55 Cancri d of 617 m to 55 Cancri A, which the planets orbit.

Models

Probably the first accessible scale model worldwide is the planetary model of the city ​​of Hagen on the southeastern edge of the Ruhr area , built from 1960 (scale 1: 1 billion).

See also: Planetary paths in Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

Apparent sizes of the objects

A typical property of scaled-down models is that the apparent sizes of the objects (ie the angles at which they appear to the viewer) are the same as in the original. That means, if you stand next to the earth model and look at the sun model, the solar sphere looks the same size as the real sun as it stands in the sky from the earth. This applies to the scale 1: 1.4 billion (diameter 1 m, 107 m distance) as well as to the scale 1: 1 billion (diameter 1.39 m, 149.6 m distance).

These relationships also make it possible to adequately appreciate the observational achievements and discoveries of astronomy : The Neptune moons Proteus and Nereid appear in the night sky as large as a grain of dust about 0.3 mm in diameter at a distance of 3 km.

Particularly large models

The Sweden Solar System is the largest full-scale model of our solar system. The sun is represented by the Globe Arena in Stockholm , the largest spherical building in the world. In this model, Neptune is 229 km from the Sun and has a diameter of 2.5 meters. His model is in a park in Söderhamn .

Another very large, full-scale model with a scale of 1: 46,500,000 and a length of 138 km is located near Syracuse , New York State.

Models not to scale

In the case of models of our solar system that are not to scale, the sizes of the celestial bodies or their distances to one another have different scales.

Most of the illustrations of the solar system in books and atlases are also not to scale. Either the distances between the orbital radii of the celestial bodies are correctly reproduced in such drawings, in which case the planets would have to be so small in some cases that they could only be reproduced as dots. Or the proportions of the celestial bodies are shown correctly in the drawing, in which case their distances from one another cannot be shown to scale.

Mechanical - and also virtual - implementations of such models are called orrery ; if they only include the sun, earth and moon, tellurium .

See also

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