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The size of the solar system

The solar system is almost all empty space. If the Sun were a football, the Earth would be a peppercorn 21 metres away, Jupiter a grape 112 metres away and Neptune a pea about 650 metres away - and the nearest other star would be another football thousands of kilometres away. Even light takes about 8 minutes to reach us from the Sun.

Depth 1 · Foundation

You can describe the solar system with a scale model, and explain that it is mostly empty space and that even the nearest star is very much farther away than the planets.

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Depths of understanding

  1. 1

    Foundation

    You can describe the solar system with a scale model, and explain that it is mostly empty space and that even the nearest star is very much farther away than the planets.

    Opens after

    Small worldsThe scale model puts the whole Sun's family in its place - meet all of it first.The EarthThe model starts from the Earth's size next to the Sun's - 109 Earths across.

Your path here

What's still between you and The size of the solar system, depth 1, in the order you can learn it.

  1. 1The SunDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  2. 2The EarthDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  3. 3The MoonDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  4. 4Day and nightDepth 1 · Foundation · The Sky
  5. 5The yearDepth 1 · Foundation · The Sky
  6. 6StarsDepth 1 · Foundation · Stars
  7. 7ConstellationsDepth 1 · Foundation · The Sky
  8. 8PlanetsDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  9. 9Rocky planetsDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  10. 10Giant planetsDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  11. 11Small worldsDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System
  12. 12The size of the solar systemDepth 1 · Foundation · The Solar System

Where it fits

Builds on

Small worldsThe Earth

This concept

The size of the solar systemThe Solar System