The Solar System Model

The Big Idea

The big idea of the solar system is to understand how the planets orbit the Sun.

To make the most of the solar system model, you should show:

• The planets orbit the Sun.

• The further away from the Sun, the slower the planet travels.

• The further away from the Sun, the further the planet has to travel to complete a full orbit.

The key problem with the solar system model is scale: if the sun and planets were all to scale, the planets would need to be tiny and the distances between them would be huge. You can give a sense of this if you have a large playing field and a 1m diameter ball to represent the Sun.

• Mercury would be a 3mm ball 42 metres from the Sun.

• The Earth would be 9mm in diameter and 108 metres from the Sun.

• Neptune would be 35mm in diameter and more than three kilometres from the Sun.