• Question: what is a planetry walk

    Asked by laurafoley99 to Arlene, Colin, David, Eugene, Paul on 13 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by aislingdillon.
    • Photo: Paul Higgins

      Paul Higgins answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      I think what you mean is when you space out objects to represent the solar system and then walk from the “sun” toward “neptune”. Armagh observatory has one of those. So, the sun would be first, then you would walk, say, 2.5 meters to mercury, 8 meters to venus, 10 meter to earth, 15 meters to mars, 40 meters to Jupiter, and so on. (I’m roughly estimating the distance scale). It really gives you a sense of how big the solar system is… try it!

    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      I think Eugene is going to build one if he wins!

    • Photo: Colin Johnston

      Colin Johnston answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Astronomers measure distances inside the Solar System in Astronomical Units (AU). One AU equals the average distance from Earth to the Sun (about 150 million km). Here are the distance from the Sun to various Solar system objects.

      Mercury 0.39AU
      Venus 0.7 AU
      Earth 1 AU
      Mars 1.52 AU
      Asteroids and Ceres (dwarf planet) 2.8 AU
      Jupiter 5.2 AU
      Saturn 9.6AU
      Uranus 19.2 AU
      Neptune 30.1 AU
      Pluto (dwarf planet) 40AU
      Eris (dwarf planet) 67 AU

      Try setting this to different scales, say 1cm = 1 AU, 1m =1AU, 1 km= 1AU and see big the Solar System is!

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