Anyone been outside to see them?About halfway up in the western sky.Pretty bright,and should be even better,later in the week. Lightman
...........Brilliant views from So Calif. Got the binos out tonight.
Next time any of you run across a small round steel ball bearing or a small round marble that measures 1/4" in diameter, think about the following scale as it relates to distances from the sun to the planets and well beyond.
Imagine that the 1/4" in diameter bearing or marble you now hold in your hand or between your fingers represents planet earth, which in round #s is roughly 8,000 miles in diameter. In all of the following, 1/4" = 8,000 miles.
In porportion to the earth`s size (only 1/4" in diameter) our sun at roughly 109 times greater in diameter than the earth, (872,000 miles), would represent a ball 27.25" in diameter.
Place a 27.25" diameter ball representing our sun out in the middle of no-where. In this scale, the following planet distances from the sun represent their "average orbital distances" from the sun.
Here we go;
From the Sun to Mercury (1st planet)........93.75 feet away. Mercury`s average orbital distance from the Sun is about 36,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Venus (2nd planet).......174.47 feet away. Venus` average orbital distance from the Sun is about 67,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Earth (3rd planet)......242.18 feet away. Earth`s average orbital distance from the Sun is about 93,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Mars (4th planet)......369.79 feet away. Mars average orbital distance from the Sun is about 142,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Jupiter (5th planet).....1257.81 feet away. Jupiter`s average orbital distance from the Sun is 483,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Saturn (6th planet).....2320.3 feet away. Saturn`s average orbital distance from the Sun is 891,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Uranus (7th planet).....4645.76 feet away. Uranus` average orbital distance from the Sun is 1,784,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Neptune (8th planet).....7286.32 feet away. (1.379 miles). Neptune`s average orbital distance from the Sun is 2,798,000,000 miles.
From the Sun to Pluto (9th planet). Some astronomers no longer consider Pluto a planet, but I`ll use it anyway......9557 feet away (1.81 mi). Pluto`s average orbital distance from the Sun is 3,670,000,000 miles.
From our Sun to the closest star Alpha Centuri........12,719 miles away, which represents 4.3 light years or about 25.8 trillion actual miles at a scale of 1/4" equaling 8,000 miles.
From our 27.25" diameter scaled down Sun and 1/4" diameter scaled down earth out to the edges of the known visible universe some 15 billion light years distant? 44,370,000,000,000 miles (44 trillion, 370 billion miles or about 7.395 light years).
A much easier way to better comprehend such enormous distances is to scale them way down porportionally.
Using a scaled down 1/4" = an 8,000 mile diameter earth, Venus averages about 67.71 feet away from earth and Jupiter averages about 2078.12 feet away from earth.
So when you all look up and see Venus and Jupiter, you have a good idea of how far away porportionally they are from earth based on the earth`s size.
Just a little somethin for you space and astronomy buffs.
