[26 December 2020] I've not
yet started Chapter 14 about
the planets, but for Christmas
I received one of these "DIY
Solar System Planetariums"
aimed at children but surely
fun for adults too! It needs
assembling and painting.
In the included
instructions is a page give
some details about the solar
system, so I thought I would
add those here [there are also
some mistakes! and I haven't
checked all details for
accuracy]:
- The Sun is 93,000,000
miles from the Earth [or 1
AU], its diameter is 865,000
miles
- Mercury is 36,000,000
miles from the Sun, its
diameter is only 3,100 miles
- Venus is 67,000,000
miles from the Sun, its
diameter is 7,570 miles
- Regarding the Earth
it is stated the Sun is
36,000,000 miles away...
[I think someone copied and
pasted the detail for
Mercury! but it already
stated (correctly) that it
is 93,000,000 miles away].
The Earth's diameter is
7,900 miles [this is
something the Ancient
Egyptians knew and
programmed into their Great
Pyramid]
- Mars is 142,000,000
miles from the Sun, it has a
diameter of 4,222 miles
- Jupiter is
483,000,000 miles from the
Sun, it has the largest
diameter of the planets at
88,700 miles. It makes a
complete revolution on its
axis in half the time as
Earth does [this seems
epic given its size!].
- Saturn is 889,000,000
miles from the Sun, its
diameter is 75,700 miles,
again rotating in half the
time as Earth does
- Uranus is
1,800,000,000 miles from the
Sun [three times further
than Jupiter is], its
diameter is 32,000 miles
- Neptune is
2,800,000,000 miles from the
Sun, its diameter is 30,800
miles
The details about the
number of moons each planet
has is some what vague; for
the outer planets it just says
"more than..."; here are the
details I found from
NASA:
Mercury - 0
Venus - 0
Earth - 1
Mars - 2
Jupiter - 53 confirmed
Saturn - 53 confirmed
Uranus - 27
Neptune - 14
The Planetarium itself
doesn't include moons; it
would have been nice if it
included the Earths since this
is more important to us, maybe
I'll consider adding my own
when I come to assembling the
model. |