Can you name the 8 planets in our solar system?
They are pretty far apart, but it we squashed them together in a line, how many of them do you think would fit between Earth and the Moon?
The 8 planets are;
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
How do we work out how many will fit??
Firstly we need to know that the distance between Earth and the Moon is on average 238,855 miles. But the orbit (the path the Moon takes around the Earth) is a squashed circle, so it is sometimes further away at 252, 088 miles and sometimes closer at 225, 623 miles.
We then need to know the diameters of each of the planets
Mercury – 3,032 miles (about a third as wide as Earth)
Venus - 7,521 miles (about the same width as Earth)
Mars – 4,221 miles (about half as wide as Earth)
Jupiter - 88,846 miles (about 11 times wider than Earth)
Saturn - 74,898 miles (about 9 times wider that Earth)
Uranus - 31,763 miles (about 4 times wider that Earth)
Neptune - 30,775 miles (about 4 times wider that Earth)
The total width of all of the planets lined up next to each other is 241,056 miles, so they would all fit, that’s how far the moon is away from the Earth, Space really does have lots of space!!
So, where did I find these numbers?
I used a number of websites where I trust the organisations that write them.
NASA is the USA Space Agency and is a great source of Space information including good explanations and photographs from different space missions. You will see that part of the
email address has “.gov”, this means that it is a government organisation, in the UK we have “.gov.uk”.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/planet-sizes-and-locations-in-our-solar-system/
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/
I also used Royal Museums Greenwich, which I know is a reliable organisation on information about Space. They have an observatory and museum you can visit in London as well as all the information on their website. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/how-far-away-moon
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
How do we work out how many will fit??
Firstly we need to know that the distance between Earth and the Moon is on average 238,855 miles. But the orbit (the path the Moon takes around the Earth) is a squashed circle, so it is sometimes further away at 252, 088 miles and sometimes closer at 225, 623 miles.
We then need to know the diameters of each of the planets
Mercury – 3,032 miles (about a third as wide as Earth)
Venus - 7,521 miles (about the same width as Earth)
Mars – 4,221 miles (about half as wide as Earth)
Jupiter - 88,846 miles (about 11 times wider than Earth)
Saturn - 74,898 miles (about 9 times wider that Earth)
Uranus - 31,763 miles (about 4 times wider that Earth)
Neptune - 30,775 miles (about 4 times wider that Earth)
The total width of all of the planets lined up next to each other is 241,056 miles, so they would all fit, that’s how far the moon is away from the Earth, Space really does have lots of space!!
So, where did I find these numbers?
I used a number of websites where I trust the organisations that write them.
NASA is the USA Space Agency and is a great source of Space information including good explanations and photographs from different space missions. You will see that part of the
email address has “.gov”, this means that it is a government organisation, in the UK we have “.gov.uk”.
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/planet-sizes-and-locations-in-our-solar-system/
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/
I also used Royal Museums Greenwich, which I know is a reliable organisation on information about Space. They have an observatory and museum you can visit in London as well as all the information on their website. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/how-far-away-moon
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