Skip to content
Workshopy.io
Join a classSign inStart free
  • Official
  • Beginner
  • English
  • About 75 min
  • 10 steps · 2 quizzes

The Solar System, Really to Scale — Sizes, Distances and Orbits

A hands-on tour of the Solar System as it really is — sizes, distances and orbits drawn to scale, with a simulation in every step.

Start learningSee the steps
  • Free
  • No account needed
  • Stop any time, pick up where you left off
0 comments
Workshopy.io

WorkshopyOfficial

28 lessons · used by 2 teachers

For teachers

Teaching this? Run it live with your class.

  • Students join with a code — no accounts
  • See who’s done and who’s stuck, step by step
  • It’s your copy — change anything before class
Use this lesson

Sign in to copy it to your workspace. It’s free.

Your path

10 steps · 2 quizzes · about 75 minutes · open any step

  1. Welcome: a journey through the Solar SystemStart hereAlmost every picture of the Solar System you've seen is wrong — on purpose. Today you'll see it for real.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  2. How big is everything?Start with size. Pick a planet to compare with Earth — at the same scale. Try it: compare Jupiter, then the Sun. Then press All eight in a row.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
  3. How far apart?Now place them at their real distances. Astronomers measure in AU: 1 AU is Earth's average distance from the Sun, about 150 million km. Try it: step out from Inner planets to Whole system. Then switch on Draw the sizes to scale too.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  4. Light takes timeLight is the fastest thing there is — about 300,000 km every second. Even so, the Solar System is so big that light needs minutes, then hours, to cross it. Try it: send a pulse of sunlight and watch when it reaches each planet.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  5. Why do things stay in orbit?Gravity pulls everything towards Earth. So why doesn't the Moon — or a satellite — fall down? Try it: launch sideways from 400 km up (about where the Space Station flies). Try Too slow, Just right, Faster, then Escape.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  6. Check: sizes, distances and orbitsQuiz · 5 questions
  7. Orbits are stretched circlesAround 1609, Johannes Kepler found that planets move on ellipses — stretched circles — with the Sun not in the middle but off to one side. Try it: drag How stretched, or pick Earth, Mars, Mercury and a comet. Watch the speed bar.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  8. Farther out: longer laps, slower planetsKepler's third discovery links a planet's distance to how long its year is. Try it: start the race, then switch to 12 years a second.InteractiveHands-on · 10 min
  9. Why we have seasonsEarth's axis is tilted about 23.4°, and it keeps pointing the same way in space all year. So for half the year your half of Earth leans towards the Sun, and for the other half it leans away. Try it: play a year for your city. Then set the tilt to 0°.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  10. The Moon's phasesThe Moon makes no light of its own: it's lit by the Sun, and one half of it is always lit. As it circles Earth every 29.5 days, we see different amounts of that lit half. Try it: drag the Moon around Earth (or press Play one month).InteractiveHands-on · 6 min

Comments 0

You’ll sign in with Google before it’s posted.Comments are public — don’t name your students.
0 / 1,500

No comments yet. Be the first to say how it went.

Using it

Workshopy shares this lesson under CC BY 4.0. Anyone may use and change it, with credit to you. Anyone can learn it here, free. A copy in your workspace is yours to change and run live; your students never need an account.

Versions

  1. 1

    Version 1Current

    · First published

Copies are made from the current version. A copy you already have doesn’t change.

More from Workshopy

All 28 lessons