On Wednesday of week 9 year 8A students set up a scale model of the Solar System on the schools oval, that they had been working on in some of their Home Group time. Each student created a fact sheet and a model of a planet or moon and the Sun. They had to calculate how much we would have to shrink the scale of the Solar System down to be able to fit it on our oval. The students stood next to their models and all staff and students were invited to take a tour at lunch time, with the offer of a Milky Way or Mars bar their reward if they made the journey all the way to the outer planets.

To fit it in the available space (225 metres) we had to divide both the distances between the planets and the size of each planet by 20,000,000. This chart shows the real size and distances and the scaled size and distances.

This image shows the relative sizes of the planets compared to the Sun, but in our scale the Sun is only 70mm in diameter which made the planet Jupiter, the biggest planet in the Solar System, only 3mm in diameter. Essentially if we place the Solar System out to stretch across the oval, Earth is 0.3 of a millimeter, or about the size of a grain of sand.

SOLAR SYSTEM FUN FACTS

At the scale of our Solar System the next nearest star, Alpha Centuri (which is actually a 3 star system) would still be 3400 km away, that’s the same as the distance from Perth to Melbourne)

The largest Black Hole ever discovered is a Super Massive Black Hole called TON 618.

It is 6.5 Billion times the mass of our Sun

It is 55 Million Light Years away

On our scale it’s Event Horizon would be 2 km across, which is 10 times larger than our entire Solar System.

Student comments from Year 8A Solar System Model last term.

David – I could see which planets are closer and which are further away.

Aleesha – I really enjoyed doing it and found out that planets were that small on our scale and in the Solar System.

Isaac – It was really fun and exciting to learn all about different planets, it helps me understand a lot about our Solar System.

Lauren – I learned that Mars has the largest volcano in the Solar System (Olympus Mons).

Hanna – I got a better understanding of how far the planets are from each other.

Bella – It was very fascinating.

Cooper – There was lots of interesting things and the chocolates were nice.

Chloe – Was an amazing experience, learned a lot, and lovely chocolate.

Austin – It was amazing to learn just how spectacularly huge the Solar System is.

Design & Technolgy Teacher - Toby Cocks