Relative Planet Sizes

In Contemporary Astronomy, Jay Pasachoff makes an interesting scale of the planetary orbits to a United States map. Some of the comparisons in the scale are:

  • Sun: a ball of hot gas just over a kilometer in size in the center of New York
  • Mercury: a 4 meter diameter ball at mid Long Island
  • Venus: a 10 meter diameter ball one and a half times further
  • Earth: Earth slightly bigger and passing over Trenton, New Jersey
  • Mars: Mars about 5 meters in diameter just past Philadelphia
  • Jupiter: About 100 meters in diameter at the Ohio line
  • Saturn: A little smaller than Jupiter without its rings, past Cincinnati
  • Uranus: About 30 meters across at the distance of Topeka
  • Neptune: About 30 meters across at Santa Fe
  • Pluto: About Los Angeles

Relative sizes of planets
Index

Solar System Illustration

Solar System Concepts

Reference
Pasachoff
 
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