Name:______________________________ Period:_____ Date:____________
Astronomy Unit 3
Building a Solar System Scale Model Lab
Introduction: In order to get a better picture of how objects in our Universe are
organized, scientists often make models that are to scale. Today we are going to
build a solar system model that will fit the length of our classroom. The classroom
distance from the Sun to each Planet will be proportionate to the actually
distances between these celestial objects.
Data: Use your reference tables to retrieve distance from the sun to each of the
planets, starting with the closest. Record your data in the table below:
Planet
Mean Distance from the Sun (Million Km)
The length of our classroom is _________
Question: How many centimeters should each Million Kilometers be worth if we
want to start the Sun at 0 centimeters on our scale and end with Neptune at
_________ centimeters? Show your work below and round to the nearest tenth:
(Hint: Set up a proportion)
Directions: Using the data table to figure out how many centimeters each model
planet should be from our model sun. Show your work below and round to the
nearest tenth.
Mercury:
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Conclusion Questions:
1) Why are scale models useful in Earth Science?
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2) The planets on our model are all lined up in a straight line, explain why this
rarely actually happens.
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4) If we were to use the same scale to draw the planets, how many centimeters
should the equatorial diameters of the Sun, Jupiter and Earth be? Show all your
work below and round to the nearest thousandth. Be careful with units!
Sun
Jupiter
Earth
Equatorial Diameter=
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Equatorial Diameter=
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Equatorial Diameter=
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3) Look at your calculated model Equatorial Diameter for each celestial object and
compare it to the Hubble space craft picture we hung from out actual model in the
classroom. Explain what is wrong with our model.
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