Quote:
"Such are the distances, in fact that it isn't possible, in any practical
terms, to draw the solar system to scale. Even if you added lots of fold-out
pages to your textbooks or used a really long sheet of poster paper, you
wouldn't come close. On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth
reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand
feet away and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant (and about the size
of a bacterium, so you wouldn1t be able to see it anyway)."
I found this portion of the reading extremely interesting. People tend to make those perfectly scale maps of our solar system that show everything in a nice proportionate way. I always had a hunch that things in space werent this linear and proportionate. I had no idea that everything would still be so far apart. Pluto being the size of a bactirum is pretty small! I remember in chemistry class, our teacher did a demonstration where she made a scale diagram as to where everything in an atom is. I think teachers should do the same with the solar system! Why do we put the solar system in such simple terms? Why dont teachers explain the vast amounts of space and the enourmous size of planets? I think that this weeks reading helped me learn that I still know so little about the vast world out there and that not everything is how it always seems. After reading this text I am more curious about space and our solar system.
Sup Emilie. I found your quote very interesting as well. I never knew that the planets were that far away, and it really put it into perspective when they used the pea example. I also really liked how you used a personal example from your teacher's demonstration. I also liked your questions because I wished my teachers had explained the planets to me more.
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