The Earth as Pocket Change

Most people think the solar system looks like this, All the planets visible and neatly lined up in a row.



Well, that picture is good at showing the relative size of the planets, but it hardly describe the solar system very well. Distances are vast compared to the size of the objects in the solar system. Most people do not perceive just how big those heavenly bodies are relative to one another and how far apart they are. But we can create a ‘virtual’ scale model of the solar system to help us understand the scale of things.

Lets start by pretending the Earth is sphere with a diameter the same as a nickel.



The moon’s relative size is represented by the dot. With an Earth the size of a nickel, the Sun would be a sphere 8 feet in diameter. Imagine the size difference between a circle that is as big as a nickel and a circle as tall as the average room in your house. That is how much bigger the Sun is than the Earth.

So how far apart would the nickel sized earth and room sized sun be? 859 Feet! Imagine looking down on a vast blacktop parking lot. In the center is a bright, 8 foot circle. Somewhere, 859 ft from the 8 foot circle lies a shiny nickel. Would you even notice it?

Keeping that scale lets look at the rest of the Solar system:


Mercury 0.3 inches – The size of a push-pin, 333 ft from the Sun.
Venus 0.83 Inches – A nickel, Earth and Venus are about the same size, 621 ft from the Sun.
Earth 0.87 Inches – Your average 5 cent piece, 859 Ft
Moon 0.21 Inches – Roughly a quarter the diameter of the Earth, 2 Ft away from the Earth.
Mars 0.47 Inches – Just under one half inch, 1,309 Ft from the Sun.
Jupiter 9.6 Inches – A Basketball, 4,422 Ft (0.83 miles) from the Sun.
Saturn 8 Inches – A bowling Ball, 8,201 Ft (1.55 Miles) from the Sun.
Uranus 3.2 Inches – A little bigger than a baseball, 16,497 Ft (3.12 miles) from the Sun.
Neptune 3.1 Inches - A little bigger than a baseball, 25,863 (4.9 Miles) from the Sun.
Pluto 0.15 inches – the ‘zero’ on your keyboard, 33,985 (6.4 Miles) from the Sun.


So to make a scale model of the solar system with the Earth the diameter of a nickel, you would need a circle 13 miles across. The biggest thing in it is the 8ft Sun at the center. The next biggest thing in it is a 9 inch basketball and is more than three quarters of a mile from the center.