Planetary Data Chart For Modelling The Planets

* Modeling The Planets *

This activity creates a scale model of the solar system that illustrates the distance between planets and the size of the planets

  • Materials

    • Speheres (including a lime , orange and cantaloupe)several meters of heavy string , a meter ruler , calculators , pencil and paper.

    The fruit should have the following ratios in size: 1:2:4. The lime represents the moon the orange is Mars and the cantaloupe is Earth.

  • Procedure
    •

    Place the spheres around the classroom to estimate how far apart you think the planets are from each other.

    the moon is a mean distance of 384,000 km from Earth. How does the distance compare to Earth's circumference?

    Wrap the strings around the circumference of the Earth model the number of times you calculated.(Hint , divide the distance by the circumference.)Mark the string at this point. Lay the string out from the model of Earth to the model of Earth to the mark on the string and place the moon there.

    Use the chart to calculate the correct distance between model planets and lay the spheres out accordingly. Can you find spheres the correct size for each model planet

    BodySun Mercury Venus Earth / Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto
    Mean Distance From Sun (In Millions Of km) ---------- 57.9 108.2 149.6 227.9 778.3 1,429.4 2,875.0 4,516.4 5,900.0
    Diameter (in km) 1,392,000 4,878 12,104 12,755 / 3,476 6,794 142,984 120,536 51,118 49,528 2,280

    This Is Another Planet Chart But With Some Other Details.

    Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto
    Mean Distance From Sun
    Millions Of Kilometers 57.9 108.2 149.6 227.9 778.3 1,429 2,875 4,504 5,900
    Millions Of Miles 36 67.2 93 141.6 483.6 888.2 1,786 2,799 3,666
    Period Of Revolution * 87.97 Days 224.7 Days 365.26 Days 686.98 Days 11.86 Years 29.46 Years 84.07 Years 164.82 Years 248.6 Years
    Period Of Rotation * 58.65 Days 243.01 Days , Retrograde 23 hours , 56 min 24 hours , 37 min 9 hours , 56 min 10 hours , 40 min 17 hours , 14 min 16 hours , 6 min 6.39 Days , Retrograde
    Inclination Of Axis (Degrees) 0.0 177.3 23.5 25.2 3.08 26.7 97.9 29.6 122
    Inclination Of Orbit To Ecliptic (Degrees) 7.0 3.39 0.0 1.85 1.31 2.49 0.77 1.77 17.15
    Eccentricity (Degrees) 0.206 0.007 0.017 0.093 0.048 0.056 0.046 0.010 0.248
    Equatorial Diameter
    Kilometeres 4,878 12,104 12,755 6,790 142,796 120,660 51,118 49,528 2,300 (Appx.)
    Miles 3,031 7,521 7,926 4,219 88,729 74,975 31,763 30,775 1,429 (Appx.)
    Atmosphere Essentially None Carbon ,Dioxide Nitrogen ,Oxygen Carbon ,Dioxide Hydrogen ,Helium Hydrogen ,Helium Hydrogen ,Helium Hydrogen ,Helium Methane
    Sattelites None None 1 2 16 18 15 8 1
    Rings None None None None 1 Thousands 11 5 Probably None

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