Author Topic: You Could Fit All the Planets Between the Earth and the Moon (Read 1807 times)

gwillybj · « **on:** November 19, 2014, 06:28:32 PM »

You Could Fit All the Planets Between the Earth and the Moon
by FRASER CAIN on OCTOBER 25, 2014

Quote

I ran into this intriguing infographic over on Reddit that claimed that you could fit all the planets of the Solar System within the average distance between the Earth and the Moon.

I’d honestly never heard this stat before, and it’s pretty amazing how well they tightly fit together.

But I thought it would be a good idea to doublecheck the math, just to be absolutely certain. I pulled my numbers from NASA’s Solar System Fact Sheets, and they’re a little different from the original infographic, but close enough that the comparison is still valid.

Planet   Average Diameter (km)
Mercury   4,879
Venus   12,104
Mars   6,771
Jupiter   139,822
Saturn   116,464
Uranus   50,724
Neptune   49,244
Total   380,008
The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 384,400 km. And check it out, that leaves us with 4,392 km to spare.

So what could we do with the rest of that distance? Well, we could obviously fit Pluto into that slot. It’s around 2,300 km across. Which leaves us about 2,092 km to play with. We could fit one more dwarf planet in there (not Eris though, too big).

The amazing Wolfram-Alpha can make this calculation for you automatically: total diameter of the planets. Although, this includes the diameter of Earth too.

A nod to CapnTrip on Reddit for posting this.

http://www.universetoday.com/115672/you-could-fit-all-the-planets-between-the-earth-and-the-moon/
(many links in article)

Valka · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2014, 02:47:08 AM »

Considering matters of gravitational influence and radiation, I'm just as pleased for Jupiter and the other large planets to stay exactly where they are, thankyouverymuch.

Rusty Edge · « **Reply #2 on:** November 21, 2014, 01:32:12 AM »

If all of this is to scale.... my perception is way off.

If you gave me the Earth and Moon models, I would have placed the Moon orbit somewhere around where Mars is.

Geo · « **Reply #3 on:** November 21, 2014, 09:55:14 AM »

At that distance, the moon would cover half the sky, provided it kept itself in one piece. Gravitational shear might affect the moon's cohesion at that short a distance. It's even within geostationary orbit!

Rusty Edge · « **Reply #4 on:** November 21, 2014, 04:51:48 PM »

Yeah, I know from the eclipse mechanics that it couldn't be that close.

But if I had to draw a diagram of only the Earth and Moon.... Well, now I know better.

Buster's Uncle · « **Reply #5 on:** November 21, 2014, 05:18:29 PM »

If I recalled the numbers right, the attachment has it, approximately, at a pixel=1,000 miles...

Buster's Uncle · « **Reply #6 on:** November 21, 2014, 06:02:24 PM »

...Come to think of it, I got the Earth and Moon too big by a factor of slightly over three - the numbers I recalled were circumferences, not diameters that should be slightly over three time wider...