Size and Scale Data Sheet
Science Language Students Need to Understand and Use
Distance – How far one object is from another.
Force – A push or pull on an object.
Galaxy – A group of hundreds of billions of stars held together by gravity.
Gravity – The force (-push or pull on an object-) that causes objects to fall to the ground and also the force that
keeps the Moon circling Earth instead of flying off into space in a straight line
Light-year – The distance light travels in one year.
Mass – Amount of matter in an object.
Milky Way Galaxy – A group of about 100 to 400 billion stars formed in a disk-shaped spiral that contains our
solar system.
Planets – Spherical balls of rock and/or gas that orbit a star that have enough of their own gravity to become
round.
Scale – Used to measure relative distances in space; in light years.
Speed of light – About 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second)
Star – Huge balls of gas held together by gravity.
Sun – A star.
Telescope – An instrument used to view distant objects.
Universe – Everything that exists; all matter and energy; also includes all of space and time.
Planetary Data Sheet
Planet
Distance from Sun
(miles)
Mercury
36,000,000
Venus
67,000,000
Earth
93,000,000
Mars
141,000,000
Jupiter
484,000,000
Saturn
887,000,000
Uranus
1,780,000,000
Neptune
2,870,000,000
~1~
Light Distance of Planets from the Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
3 minutes 13 seconds
6 minutes 1 seconds
8 minutes 19 seconds
12 minutes 40 seconds
Light Distance of Planets from the Sun
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
43 minutes
16 seconds
1 hour 19 minutes
28 seconds
2 hours 39 minutes
50 seconds
4 hours 10 minutes
25 seconds
Astronomical Unit (AU) Table
One AU = 93,000,000 – the distance of the Earth from the Sun.
Average Distance from the
Planet
Sun (measured in
Astronomical Units - AU)
Mercury
0.4
Venus
.7
Earth
1
Mars
1.5
Jupiter
5
Saturn
10
Uranus
19
Neptune
31
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Solar System to Scale
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Planet
Diameter
(miles)
Mercury
3,031
Venus
7,521
Earth
7,926
Mars
4,222
Jupiter
88,846
Saturn
74,900
Uranus
31,763
Neptune
30,779
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Size and Scale – From Smallest to Largest
You
Earth
Sun
865,000 miles in diameter; 8 light minutes & 0.00002 light years from Earth.
Solar System
Diameter – 7,347,000,000 miles across; 15 light hours & .0017 light years across.
~4~
Stars in the Milky Way
What the Sun might look like among the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
(Sun is about 26,000 light years from the Center of the Milky Way.)
Sun
Milky Way – Diameter = about 100,000 light years
Solar System diameter = .0017 [17 thousandths] light years;
~5~
Local Group of Galaxies = Spread over 10,000,000 light years
Milky Way Galaxy = about 100,000 light years across
Solar System diameter = .0017 [17 thousandths] light years;
Virgo Galactic Supercluster – Diameter about 110,000,000 light years)
(Galactic Supercluster diameter 1,100 times larger than Milky Way; almost 65,000,000,000,000 [trillion] times the
Solar System diameter)
Local Group of Galaxies = Spread over 10,000,000 light years
Milky Way Galaxy = about 100,000 light years across
Solar System diameter = .0017 [17 thousandths] light years;
~6~
The Universe – Diameter = 27,000,000,000 light years
(Note – The farthest we can see in any direction is 13,500,000,000 light years. We call this the visual universe.
Since the universe is expanding the entire 13,500,000,000 years, the actual size of the universe is over
64,000,000,000 light years!)
(Universe diameter at least 250 time supercluster diameter; 270,000 times larger than Milky Way; almost
16,000,000,000,000,000[quadrillion] times the Solar System diameter)
The Universe – Diameter = 27,000,000,000 light years
Virgo Galactic Supercluster – Diameter about 110,000,000 light years
Local Group of Galaxies = Spread over 10,000,000 light years
Milky Way Galaxy = about 100,000 light years across
Solar System diameter = .0017 [17 thousandths] light years;
Basic Facts:
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Space is huge!
Space is made up mostly of empty space.
All the stuff in the galaxy is very small compared to the empty space.
If two galaxies collided, there is so much space between the stars, no stars would collide.
The Solar System is very, very small compared to the Milky Way.
The Milky Way is very, very small compared to the Local Group.
The Local Group is very, very small compared to the Virgo Galactic Supercluster.
Everything is very, very small compared to the universe.
~7~
The Universe in Numbers
The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across and 2,000 light thick at its center.
Our Sun is 30,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way.
There are more than 100,000,000,000
(one hundred billion) galaxies in the universe.
Each galaxy has between 100,000,000,000 and 300,000,000,000 (three hundred billion)
The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest galaxy to ours. It is 2,900,000 light-years away and 150,000 light-years across.
The Local Group contains 50 galaxies and is 5,000,000 light-years across.
The Speed of Light
186,000 miles per second
300,000 kilometers per second
11,160,000 miles per minute
18,000,000 kilometers per minute
69,600,000 miles per hour
1,080,000,000 kilometers per hour
16,070,400,000 miles per day
25,920,000,000 kilometers per day
112,492,800,000 miles per week
181,440,000,000 kilometers per week
5,865,696,000,000 miles per year
9,460,800,000,000 kilometers per year
~8~