The computer of the gods will allow you to build your own Solar System
It's a bit old, please handle with care
No matter how many books you read or how you try and think about the distances involved, you can never quite picture the scale of our solar system until.....you go outside a build your own one.
If any school teacher or summer camp director is looking for a fun way of teaching a bit of astronomy then look no further. No matter how old you are this experiment will leave a lasting impression and you will never think of space in the same way again.
You can use the Computer of the Gods to scale down the solar system so that it is in bite size chunks. Just follow the simple steps below.
- Fill in the diameter of the Sun you want your model to be scaled by. You can fill in either the red bordered inches box or the green bordered millimeters box. Important: Only fill in one box. If both are filled in you will get a dialog box asking you to clear one of the boxes. Use the Clear button to clear the entire form.
- Click on the "Calculate" button.
- Notice that the distances and sizes of the planets will automatically fill in. The computer will also provide some other interesting scale comparisons.
- You can now build your scale model. You can do this with a long tape measure, or you can measure the size of your pace and walk it off counting the number of steps you take. To mark a planet's place you can use a piece of paper on a post that you stick into the ground, or you can use a flag, or even a person. Be prepared for a long walk!
- If you build your solar system on a roll of toilet paper, you can make the Sun about .4 inches (10 mm) across and still fit the entire solar system on the roll. A standard roll of toilet paper has about 450 sheets that are about 4.375 inches long, hence the roll is about 164 feet long. You should check your toilet paper for length. Some are longer.