FOOTBALL FIELD SCALE MODEL OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM DEBRIEF

8th Grade ScienceTahoma Jr. HighMaple Valley, WA

TJH FOOTBALL FIELD

Sun

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

SaturnUranus

Neptune

Pluto

Planet sizes are somewhat to scale, but not exactly.

Do you know where the names of our days come from?Satur(n)-day, Sun-day, Mo(o)n-day – the rest are from French Merdi (Mars) = Tuesday, Mercredi

(Mercury) = Wednesday, Jeudi (Jupiter) = Thursday, Vendredi (Venus) = Friday* there are Norse/Old English roots, but here is the connection to planets/etc.

These are simple conversions: Leave the weird decimal ones for later – look at Earth and say

“if one apple = $3, then Jupiter’s 5 apples = …

15

30

60

90

120

4.5

1

2

asteroid belt

Why is Pluto in parentheses??

Here you are comparing:

apples (LY) to oranges (km)then bananas (AU) to oranges (km)

Just use the oranges as a “bridge” to get from apples to bananas

240,000(60,000 x 4)

9,000,000,000,000 150,000,000 = 60,000

240,000 AUs x 3 m for each one =

720,000

ON OUR FOOTBALL FIELD MODEL

WHERE WOULD THE CLOSEST STAR BE ?

THE NEXT CLOSEST STAR IS PROXIMA CENTAURI

(“proxima” means “near” in Latin)

OVER 4 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY

(and we don’t mean the Sun either !! )

(Pluto is “only” 5 Light-HOURS away !! )

South:

Oregon / California Border (~450 miles !)

East: into Montana

(~450 miles !)

With present technology speeds (record is~ 100,000 MPH in deep space by the Galileo probe) if it takes 10 years to get to Pluto (40 AUs),

then to go 240,000 AUs to Proxima Centauri – the next nearest star:

it will take over 6,000 years !!

40 AUs for Pluto = 10 years

240,000 AUs for Proxima Centauri = 6,000 years

Also something to keep in mind with this“next nearest star thing”…

Proxima Centauri is just our next nearest star, but how many stars are in the Universe?

Sampling of the sky has provided the answer:

There are more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on ALL the beaches of Earth (those were sampled too).

THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS !!(all through this unit, you need to stop and really picture

These HUGE numbers / distances to make real meaning for yourself)

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