Courses › The Universe from Scratch › Lesson 2
The Solar System at real scale · premieres Wednesday, October 21
In almost every book the planets appear side by side, large and close to the Sun. That drawing is useful for learning the names, but it lies about the distances and the sizes. Today we're going to put the Solar System in order using real measurements, and you'll see why it is impossible to draw it to scale on a single page.
In these images the planets' positions are real for the chosen date, computed with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory orbital elements. But the sizes are enlarged: at true scale the planets would be invisible dots. The surface colours are also illustration, except for Earth and the Moon, which use NASA images.
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Diameter of the Sun / Earth | 1,392,700 km / 12,742 km | NASA Planetary Fact Sheet |
| Scale model (Sun 1 m) | Earth 9 mm at 107 m; Jupiter 10 cm at 559 m; Neptune 3.5 cm at 3.2 km | Calculated from the diameters and distances in the table |
| Mean distances (semi-major axes) | Mercury 0.387; Venus 0.723; Mars 1.524; Jupiter 5.203; Saturn 9.537; Uranus 19.19; Neptune 30.07 AU | Approximate JPL Keplerian elements (Standish), used by the template |
| Belt gaps | 3:1, 5:2, 7:3 and 2:1 resonances with Jupiter (Kirkwood gaps) | Solar System template (README) |
| Saturn's rings | Sun 7.7° from the ring plane on 4 Oct 2026 (8.1° on 31 Oct); maximum 26.7° in April 2032 | Calculated by the Solar System template |
| Real textures | Earth, Moon and sky with NASA images; the rest procedural | Solar System template (README) |
They are Solaris Core Blender templates, built from measured data. You can download them, change the camera and make your own images.
See templates