BBC Sky at Night

Make a scale model of the Solar System

e have all seen diagrams showing the planets of our Solar System orbiting the Sun. Sometimes their relative sizes are shown, but it is impossible to depict the space between them – the orbital distances of each of them from our central star. Our Solar System is huge and the distances involved are difficult to comprehend, so using scale models helps us to visualise this. As the distances are so big, it’s almost impossible to have both accurate planet sizes and distances in one scale model: if

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