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    How Big Is Our Solar System

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    pianomagician
    This document discusses the size of our solar system and provides a table to convert planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to Astronomical Units (AUs). It also presents a word problem to calculate the distance in inches that Jupiter's orbit would be from a model Sun if Neptune's orbit was 10 feet away. The key points are: 1) The distances in our solar system are vast, ranging from 93 million miles to Neptune's distance of nearly 3 billion miles from the Sun. 2) A table converts planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to their equivalent in AUs, with 1 AU defined as the Earth-Sun distance. 3) A scale model problem is given

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    How Big Is Our Solar System

    Uploaded by

    pianomagician
    35 views2 pages
    This document discusses the size of our solar system and provides a table to convert planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to Astronomical Units (AUs). It also presents a word problem to calculate the distance in inches that Jupiter's orbit would be from a model Sun if Neptune's orbit was 10 feet away. The key points are: 1) The distances in our solar system are vast, ranging from 93 million miles to Neptune's distance of nearly 3 billion miles from the Sun. 2) A table converts planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to their equivalent in AUs, with 1 AU defined as the Earth-Sun distance. 3) A scale model problem is given

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    calculating the size of our solar system.

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    How Big is Our Solar System

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    This document discusses the size of our solar system and provides a table to convert planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to Astronomical Units (AUs). It also presents a word problem to calculate the distance in inches that Jupiter's orbit would be from a model Sun if Neptune's orbit was 10 feet away. The key points are: 1) The distances in our solar system are vast, ranging from 93 million miles to Neptune's distance of nearly 3 billion miles from the Sun. 2) A table converts planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to their equivalent in AUs, with 1 AU defined as the Earth-Sun distance. 3) A scale model problem is given

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    35 views2 pages

    How Big Is Our Solar System

    Uploaded by

    pianomagician
    This document discusses the size of our solar system and provides a table to convert planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to Astronomical Units (AUs). It also presents a word problem to calculate the distance in inches that Jupiter's orbit would be from a model Sun if Neptune's orbit was 10 feet away. The key points are: 1) The distances in our solar system are vast, ranging from 93 million miles to Neptune's distance of nearly 3 billion miles from the Sun. 2) A table converts planet distances from the Sun in millions of kilometers to their equivalent in AUs, with 1 AU defined as the Earth-Sun distance. 3) A scale model problem is given

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    1

    How Big is Our Solar System?


    Our solar system is so big it
    is almost impossible to imagine its
    size if you use ordinary units like
    feet or miles. The distance from
    Earth to the Sun is 93 million miles
    (149 million kilometers), but the
    distance to the farthest planet
    Neptune is nearly 3 billion miles
    (4.5 billion kilometers). Compare
    this to the farthest distance you can
    walk in one full day (70 miles) or
    that the International Space Station
    travels in 24 hours (400,000 miles).
    The best way to appreciate the size of our solar system is by creating a scaled model of it that
    shows how far from the sun the eight planets are located. Astronomers use the distance between Earth
    and sun, which is 93 million miles, as a new unit of measure called the Astronomical Unit. It is defined to
    be exactly 1.00 for the Earth-Sun orbit distance, and we call this distance 1.00 AUs.

    Problem 1 - The table below gives the distance from the Sun of the eight planets in our solar system.
    By setting up a simple proportion, convert the stated distances, which are given in millions of kilometers,
    into their equivalent AUs, and fill-in the last column of the table.
    Planet Distance to the
    Sun in millions
    of kilometers
    Distance to the
    Sun in
    Astronomical
    Units
    Mercury 57
    Venus 108
    Earth 149
    Mars 228
    J upiter 780
    Saturn 1437
    Uranus 2871
    Neptune 4530
    Problem 2 Suppose you wanted to build a scale model of our solar system so that the orbit of
    Neptune was located 10 feet from the yellow ball that represents the sun. How far from the yellow
    ball, in inches, would you place the orbit of J upiter?
    Space Math http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov

    1 Answer Key

    Problem 1 - The table below gives the distance from the Sun of the eight planets in our solar
    system. By setting up a simple proportion, convert the stated distances, which are given in
    millions of kilometers, into their equivalent AUs, and fill-in the last column of the table.

    Answer: In the case of Mercury, the proportion you would write would be

    149 million km 57 million km
    ------------------- = -------------------- then X = 1 AU x (57/149) = 0.38
    1 AU X


    Planet Distance to the
    Sun in millions
    of kilometers
    Distance to the
    Sun in
    Astronomical
    Units
    Mercury 57 0.38
    Venus 108 0.72
    Earth 149 1.00
    Mars 228 1.52
    J upiter 780 5.20
    Saturn 1437 9.58
    Uranus 2871 19.14
    Neptune 4530 30.20


    Problem 2 Suppose you wanted to build a scale model of our solar system so that the orbit
    of Neptune was located 10 feet from the yellow ball that represents the sun. How far from the
    yellow ball, in inches, would you place the orbit of J upiter?

    Answer: The proportion would be written as:

    30.20 AU 5.2 AU
    --------------- = ------------- then X = 10 feet x (5.2/30.2) so X =1.72 feet
    10 feet X



    Since 1 foot =12 inches, the unit conversion is written as

    12 inches
    1.72 feet x ----------------- = 20.64 inches.
    1 foot
    Space Math http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov

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