How Much Space is in the Solar System?

--------- #1258 - How Much Space is in our Solar System?

- The Universe is a very big place with lots of space. We really do not know what space is, or, what’s it made of. To visualize how much space is in the Solar System let’s scale the Sun down to the size of a grapefruit, 4 inches in diameter. With everything at this scale how much space is in our Solar System?

- Attachments - Solar System

- Find a large flat field and bring your tape measure. Bring a grapefruit and some salt.

- Put the grapefruit down on the ground and measure the distance of 14 feet. Put a grain of table salt down on the ground. That grain of salt represents the planet Mercury.

- Now measure 26 feet from the grapefruit and place a grain of sea salt on the ground. Grains of sea salt are slightly larger than grains of table salt. That is Venus 26 feet from the Sun.

- Measure out 36 feet and another grain of sea salt represents the planet Earth. Look back at the Sun 36 feet away. That is only “space” between those 3 grains of salt.

- Measure out to 54 feet and another grain of salt is for Mars

- If you measure all the way out to the wanna-be planet Pluto you have to go out 1,416 feet and drop a ½ grain of table salt.

- There is all that space back to the Sun 1,416 feet away. But, that is just the radius of the Solar System. Sweep the radius and you get a circle with the area, pi*r^2, = 6,299,069 square feet. Now sweep the circle into a sphere of space surrounding the Solar System. The volume is 4/3 * pi * r^3, = 11,892,642,650 cubic feet. That is a lot of space for 5 grains of salt and 4 little marbles to roll around in.

- Here is a summary table of the diameters and distances reduced to the scale of the Sun’s diameter at 4 inches:

--------------------- Sun ------------ 4 inches
---------------------Mercury --------- 0.0139 ------------ 13 feet, 10.5 inches
---------------------Venus ----------- 0.0347 ------------ 25 feet, 10.7 inches
---------------------Earth ----------- 0.0366 ------------- 35 feet, 9.8 inches
---------------------Mars ----------- 0.0194 ------------- 54 feet, 6.75 inches
---------------------Jupiter ----------- 0.4109 ------------ 186 feet, 4.2 inches
---------------------Saturn ----------- 0.3346 ------------ 342 feet
---------------------Uranus ----------- 0.1348 ------------ 687 feet
---------------------Neptune --------- 0.1305 ------------ 1077 feet
---------------------Pluto ------------- 0.006 -------------- 1426 feet

- To get to the nearest star, Alpha Centura, you have to travel out to 1,832 miles.

- To get to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, 11,890,177 miles before looking back at the grapefruit.

- The Sun is a small star at only 4 inches. Look at the star Betelgeuse in the Constellation Orion. This is a Red Giant star and 125 feet in diameter

- On the other side of the scale, Sirius B, is a White Dwarf star that is only 0.04 inches in diameter.

- The smallest a star can become before disappearing in to a Blackhole is a Neutron Star and it would be only 0.000057 inches in diameter.

- If you want to place the Moon in orbit around the Earth go back to the 36 feet distance and find the grain of sea salt. Place the pin point that is 0.0099 inches in diameter and place it 1.1 inches from the salt. That is our Moon in orbit.

- Visualizing the scale of space in this way you can see there is a lot of space. And, we really do not know what space is? What is it made of? We know the Universe is expanding. Space is expanding. Does that mean that what ever it is is being diluted? Will space expand forever? Taking time backwards: how did all that space get squeezed into a singularity starting from the Big Bang?

- Well, we do not know what it is , but , there certainly is a lot of it.

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(1) #781 Much ToDo About Nothing
(2) Plus, another 13 reviews on the topic of spacetime.
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