How big the earth is really

May 17, 2006

You really want to know how big the earth is compared to the other planets and the sun?

This topic was something I looked at in an Astronomy class I took last year.
We also had to discuss creating a scale model of the solar system to help appreciate how big it is. If you would use a typical classroom globe of the earth as scale the sun would be 146 feet in diameter, Earth would be 40 feet away from the sun. Pluto would be 3 inches in diameter and 118 miles away from the sun. Alpha Centauri A our next closest star would be 822,400 miles away. That far away if the earth was the size of a classroom globe. It really helps people appreciate how much space is in space.

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