The Sun, the Earth, the Moon, diameters.?

Question

I once read a book about our Solar System. It gave the diameters of the above (which I no longer have, unfortunately). To understand those figures a bit better, I scaled them down and came up with the following:

The Sun: 9'0" in diameter, the height of my kitchen ceiling (but imagine it as a 9'0" sphere).
The Earth: The size of a table tennis ball
The Moon: The size of a 1/4" ball bearing.

What do you think of my calculations. Are they accurate?

Can anyone answer Iroc 70's question (found at the bottom of his posting), using the same scale specified in my posting?

Answer 1

They are almost correct the moon is a little less than 1/4 of a ball bearing.

Answer 2

Hi:

I think that is impressive, however the size of the Earth is about 15/16 of a inch here how I arrive at my answer:


870,000 = the Sun diameter

8000 = The Earth diameter

9 feet is the model Sun diameter


8000############ x { Pay no attentation to the "#" sign
-------###=#######----- ### {there for postioning things here. }
870000 ##########9


8000*9= 870000x

72000= 870000x

72000/870000= x

0.082759 feet = x

or 12*082759= 0.993108 inch

0.993108*16 aprox 1 inch or 15/16 of a inch


The Moon diameter is 2160 miles So

2160 / 8000 = x / .993108


2145.11328= 8000x

2145.11328/8000 = x


0.268139 inches = x

0.26813916 *16 or 4/16 inches or about 1/4 of a inch

I think the Earth is a size of a golf ball that measures about 1 inch . The Moon you were dead on


Still you did a very good job on that

My hat is off to you for just doing that:

W O W !

For a extra points: What is the scaled distance for The Sun to the Earth and the scaled distance from the Earth to the Moon using your scale of the Sun for distance?

Answer 3

definitely not. how could you even think that the earth and all the other heavenly bodies were so small. here are the actual diameters, in km
sun - 1.4 million
mercury - 4878
venus - 12103
earth - 12756
moon - 3470
mars - 6786
asteroids - averagely, each is about 1000km diameter
jupiter - 142984
saturn - 120536
uranus - 51118
neptune - 49528
pluto - 2300
and i think these are awefully larger than the height of your kitchen ceiling or the sizw of a table tennis ball or the size of a 1.25cm ball bearing

Answer 4

You were so close with your diameters, you answer his(Iroc 70's) question. You learn better answering the question yourself.
...jj

Answer 5

You just described the size of earth as neptune, but that's still pretty close.

Answer 6

Lynn, check out this link http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
It does not give you the exact scales but a more or less idea of the size in comparisons.