Science Project Ideas for Kids

Solar System Scale Model

A. Planetary Distances: A scale of 1 cm:5×10⁶ km (1 cm : 5 million km) can be used to make a model for for planetary distances.

To calculate the model distance of planets to the sun divide the actual distance by 5 million km. The answer will be measured in centimeters, cm.

For example: actual distance of Mercury to the Sun =57 million km

model distance =57 million km ÷ 5 million km = 11.6 cm

For information about planet distances from the Sun and planet diameters, check out
Kids Astronomy.com.

B. Planetary Sizes: A scale for comparing planetary sizes is 1 cm:2×10³ km (1 cm: 2 thousand km).

To calculate models of planets, divide the actual diameter of each planet measured in kilometers by 2×10³ km.

Question:

Using the scale that 1 cm = 2,000 km, what is the scale for the Earth and its Moon?

Answer:

1. The diameter of the Earth is 12,755 km.

12,755 km ÷ 2,000 cm/km = 6.377 cm or 6.4 cm

The scale diameter of the Earth would be 6.4 cm

2. The diameter of the Moon is about 1/4 the diameter of Earth.

6.4 cm ÷ 4 = 1.6 cm

Trying to produce a scale model of each part of the solar system is difficult. While the scale of
1 cm: 2 thousand km
works well with comparing the planets, the moons for the planets would be very small.