Sizes of the planets
Orreries are mechanisms to show the relative motion of each of the planets around the sun - they do not show the sizes of the planets or the distances the planets are from the sun.
This picture shows how small the earth is in comparison to the larger planets.
This picture shows how small the earth is in comparison to the larger planets.
Generally we do not realize how big and how far away the Sun really is.
If the Sun is scaled down to 300 mm (about the size of a football) then our Earth is a 2.7 mm round pin head 32 metres away!
The Moon appears to us as large as the Sun, but it would be just 0.7 mm in diameter and 82 mm from the Earth.
Jupiter would be like a large marble of 30 mm diameter 167 metres from the football sized sun, and Neptune would be like a pearl of 9.7 mm diameter at about 1 km away.
So it is impractical to make a true scale orrery!
The picture below shows the relative sizes of our sun and the planets. You and I are on that little speck 5th from the right!
Jupiter may be big to us but pales to insignificance when compared with the sun.
If the Sun is scaled down to 300 mm (about the size of a football) then our Earth is a 2.7 mm round pin head 32 metres away!
The Moon appears to us as large as the Sun, but it would be just 0.7 mm in diameter and 82 mm from the Earth.
Jupiter would be like a large marble of 30 mm diameter 167 metres from the football sized sun, and Neptune would be like a pearl of 9.7 mm diameter at about 1 km away.
So it is impractical to make a true scale orrery!
The picture below shows the relative sizes of our sun and the planets. You and I are on that little speck 5th from the right!
Jupiter may be big to us but pales to insignificance when compared with the sun.
However even our sun diminishes in significance when we start comparing it to other suns out there
And if you thought they were big - have a look at these suns! The sun is the tiny 1 pixel spec on the bottom left.