- 3373 - SOLAR SYSTEM - today’s size and growing? - How Much Space is in our Solar System? The Universe is a very big place with lots of space. Let’s just start with our little solar system. We really do not know what space is, or, what’s it made of.
----------------- 3373 - SOLAR SYSTEM - today’s size and growing?
- 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?
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- Find a large flat field and bring your tape measure. Bring a grapefruit and some salt.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Measure out to 54 feet and another grain of salt is for Mars
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Here is a summary table of the diameters and distances reduced to the scale of the Sun’s diameter at 4 inches:
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--------------------- Sun ------------ 4 inches
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---------------------Mercury --------- 0.0139 ------------ 13 feet, 10.5 inches
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---------------------Venus ----------- 0.0347 ------------ 25 feet, 10.7 inches
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---------------------Earth ----------- 0.0366 ------------- 35 feet, 9.8 inches
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---------------------Mars ----------- 0.0194 ------------- 54 feet, 6.75 inches
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---------------------Jupiter ----------- 0.4109 ------------ 186 feet, 4.2 inches
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---------------------Saturn ----------- 0.3346 ------------ 342 feet
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---------------------Uranus ----------- 0.1348 ------------ 687 feet
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---------------------Neptune --------- 0.1305 ------------ 1077 feet
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---------------------Pluto ------------- 0.006 -------------- 1426 feet
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- To get to the nearest star, Alpha Centura, you have to travel out to 1,832 miles.
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- To get to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, 11,890,177 miles before looking back at the grapefruit.
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- 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
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- On the other side of the scale, Sirius B, is a White Dwarf star that is only 0.04 inches in diameter.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Does that mean that what ever it 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?
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- Well, we do not know what it is , but , there certainly is a lot of it. And our Solar System is getting bigger with new discoveries. But, fewer planets ????
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- Our Solar System had nine planets, now it has eight. Poor Pluto got dumped from the list of planets and sent back out into the Kuiper Belt. Why did this happen?
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- Pluto is the farthest planet just outside the orbit of Neptune. Astronomers have discovered over 70 objects orbiting beyond Neptune and some are even bigger than Pluto. The only fair thing to do was for astronomers to call them all “ Dwarf Planets”.
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- Pluto got demoted. Astronomers have recorded over 1,000 objects traveling outside Neptune’s orbit. Most are categorized as comets. The big ones as Dwarf Planets.
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- The Dwarf Planets are hard to see having a brightness dimmer than “Magnitude 21“. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. So, it was a planet for over 70 years. Pluto has a large eccentric orbit tilted to the plane of the other planets.
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- The reason these discoveries are happening now is that the technology has improved. The eyeball at the end of a telescope is now a 161 mega-pixel CCD camera. Astronomers need not even be near the telescope. They can be in front of a computer anywhere in the world.
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- The way these discoveries are made is to fine Solar System objects that move in relation the background stars that are stationary. If 3 pictures are taken over 3 hours and the object has moved it needs to be checked out. If it moves too fast it could be an asteroid, an airplane, or a random flash from a Cosmic Ray. It needs to move just right to be a planet in orbit around the Sun.
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- Astronomers discovered “Eris” that is 1500 miles in diameter and has 27% more mass than Pluto. Xena was the first name given to Eris. Eris has an orbit that extends to 97 AU ( AU is an astronomical unit which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, 93 million miles. )
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- It takes Eris 557 years to complete one orbit. It is traveling 7,686 miles per hour. The average temperature on Eris is -384 F. Eris has a small moon named Dysnomia that is 23% the size of our Moon.
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- It was recently discovered the Pluto has a 4th moon that is 8 to 21 miles in diameter. Pluto’s largest moon Charon is 648 miles in diameter The other two moons Nix and Hydra are each 19 to 61 miles in diameter.
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- The other Dwarf Planets include:
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----------------------------- Sedna
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----------------------------- Haumea
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----------------------------- Quaoar
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---------------------------- Makemake
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----------------------------- Sedna has an elliptical orbit that extends to 960 AU away from the Sun. Its closest pass is 76AU but it takes 12,000 years to complete one orbit. Today Sedna is 100AU away, which is 3 times further away than Neptune. Its brightness magnitude is 20.5. Discovered in 2003 Sedna is 66% the size of Pluto. Its surface is water ice, methane and nitrogen ice. Because of its long elliptical orbit it could be a member of the Oort Cloud and not the Kuiper Belt.
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----------------------------- Haumea was discovered in 2004. Its orbit extends from 51 AU to 34 AU and takes 283 years. It is traveling 9,359 miles per hour. Haumea has two moons. Its temperature is -370 F. It is 0.066% the size of the Earth.
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----------------------------- Quaoar was discovered in 2002. Magnitude 18.5 located in the Constellation Ophiucus. Its orbit is 41 to 45 AU taking 286 years. It is traveling 10,110 miles per hour. It is 783 miles in diameter, about 1/3 the size of Pluto. Quaoar has one moon Weynot discovered in 2007.
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---------------------------- Makemake was discovered in 2005. It is the 3 largest Dwarf Planet and the second brightest Kuiper Belt object after Pluto. Its orbit is from 53 AU to 38 AU at it takes 248 years to complete. Its temperature is -402 F with a surface of methane, ethane and nitrogen ice. It is traveling 9,843 miles per hour and is 0.05% the size of Earth.
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- As the telescopes get bigger and the cameras get to 3.2 gigapixels astronomers begin finding objects as dim as Magnitude 27. That is 250 times dimmer than current surveys. What will we find out there? What is it is bigger than Mercury?
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- An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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December 10, 2021 SOLAR SYSTEM - size and growing? 1258 1279 3373
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