Solar System to Scale

The solar system is extremely large to say the least, it is so large in fact that it may be difficult to get children to even start to comprehend the huge distances involved. Wouldn’t it be great if a manufacturer of educational toys brought out a science toy which could demonstrate the scale of the solar system? But how could this be done? One way this could be achieved is by making the planets sizes to scale, relative to each other and not including the sun in the kit at all.

Due to the enormous size differences this would involve Jupiter being the size of a large beach ball while Pluto (if having been recently downgraded from planet status is included in the kit at all), should be a tiny polystyrene ball, no more than a few millimetres across. These planets made to scale in this way would certainly prick the consciousness of any child used to seeing them pictured together in books.

However, the real wow factor is the huge distances in between some of the planets, and this could be demonstrated by first making the kit cheaply enough so it could be disposable (for reasons that will become clear) and secondly to include an information card giving the distances between each planet relative to the scaled down sizes involved.

The parent and child would then, having made sure they had plenty of petrol in the car, set off using the mileometer to mark out the distances between the planets, stopping the car at the nearest safe parking place to leave whichever planet was next in the sequence. I am not suggesting for one moment that you should make the journey to Pluto simply for the education alone, but if a journey was already planned, a holiday maybe or visiting relatives, then what better way to spice up a tedious journey than mapping out our solar system in miniature with these educational toys and amazing children and adults alike with the hugeness of this system we usually only ever see squeezed onto the pages of a book.