Lead
If we assume that the diameter of the Earth is 1 centimeter, then according to this scale, the Sun also has the diameter of a sphere, so what is the diameter of the other planets in this model?
If we put this model of the Sun on the ground, what would be the distance between the planets and the Sun?
What does the solar system look like when the Earth's diameter shrinks to 1 centimeter, and where are the boundaries of the solar system?
How long does it take for a planet in the solar system to pass through this solar model?
The Earth occupies only a relatively small part of the solar system, but it is the most familiar to us, and it is also the only home of mankind, a planet containing countless warm lives.
But the earth is also a very small celestial body relative to the sun, if we want to show all the large and small celestial bodies in the solar system, we need to shrink it a lot, but when the diameter of the earth is reduced to 1 centimeter, where is the boundary of the solar system?
1. A miniature version of the solar system.
According to the reduced scale, it takes a long time for humans to walk on the earth, so when the diameter of the earth is reduced to 1 centimeter, how far is the distance between the sun and the earth?
Scientists do not have a clear definition of the boundaries of the solar system, so there will be a lot of controversy about where to set the boundaries of the solar system, but the boundaries of the solar system are still relatively easy to define in a sense.
Because most of the celestial bodies in the solar system are affected by the gravitational pull of the sun, and the sun can emit radiation, this radiation has a range, and this range is the distance that the sun's rays can reach, then the boundary of the solar system should be in the place where the sun can still shine, that is, when the gravitational force belonging to the sun is equal to the gravitational force belonging to other galaxies.
This range is the Sun's Galactic Radianation Zone, which is an opaque gas sphere, which is opaque to the sun's radiation, and this range is the boundary of the solar system, and the diameter of this range is also about 2 light years, that is, the nearest star discovered by mankind is in this range, that is, the place where the sun can just shine.
If the diameter of 2 light years is reduced to 1 centimeter according to the diameter of the earth, then the boundary of the solar system is about 11,700 kilometers, which is much smaller than the diameter of the earth, because the gravitational pull of the sun mainly affects the irradiation of the sun's rays, and the gravitational pull of other stars is relatively weak.
The gravitational pull of the Sun is relatively wide, but there are also some celestial bodies that are not within the gravitational range of the Sun, and these celestial bodies are also considered to be part of the solar system.
These include a huge block of ice on Neptune's outer periphery, known as the Kuiper Belt, and smaller objects further afield, known as the Oort Cloud, and Sedna.
Sedna is an asteroid discovered by humans in 2003, and this asteroid is also considered to be a newly discovered large body of Pluto in the solar system.
Humans have also discovered a range farther away than Neptune, which has not yet received a definite name, but is known by humans as "extraterrestrial".
In this range, there are celestial bodies larger than Neptune, that is, some asteroids, the orbits of these celestial bodies are very biased, and Sedna's orbit still has a certain regularity, but there is no law to follow in the celestial range of these extraterrestrial objects.
2. A miniature version of the solar system.
If we shrink the sun to the size of 1 centimeter of the earth, then the earth is only the size of a steel ball, and our moon can only be half a grain of rice, so that the diameter of the earth and the moon is only 40 centimeters, so the distance between the moon and the earth is only 1.2 meters.
The time it takes for the Moon to orbit around the Earth is 1.5 minutes, so it takes 4 seconds to travel 1.2 meters at the speed of light.
So how far is the Earth from the Sun according to this ratio?
What was the diameter of the sun before it shrank?
What is the diameter of the Earth and the Sun?
The diameter of the Sun is 1,391,000 kilometers, while the diameter of the Earth is 12,742 kilometers, so according to this ratio, the diameter of the Earth is 10.9 centimeters, and the Sun has a total of 10 planetary objects.
The mass of the Sun alone accounts for about 99.86% of the mass of the entire solar system, and the rest of the stars are very, very small.
So according to this scale, according to the scale of the Earth's diameter reduced to 1 centimeter, then the diameter of the Sun is only 1.2 meters.
So how far is the distance between the Sun and the Earth?
The distance between the Sun and the Earth is 149.6 million kilometers, and if you calculate it according to this ratio, then it is 1249 meters, which is almost 1.2 kilometers.
It takes about 4,000 seconds to travel 1,249 meters at the speed of light.
According to this ratio, the diameter of Mercury is 0.21 cm, the diameter of Venus is 0.52 cm, then the diameter of Earth is 1.09 cm, Mars is 0.95 cm, Jupiter is 12.2 cm, Saturn is 10.2 cm, Uranus is 3.7 cm, Neptune is 3.6 cm, Pluto is 0.04 cm, and there is no need to calculate the other small objects in detail.
According to this ratio, the distance of Sedna is 50.3 meters, so the time for humans to walk Sedna is very long, that is, about 160,000 seconds, and any kind of wave emitted by the sun will take a long time to reach.
The range of the warning is 3.2 kilometers, which is even larger than expected.
3. Discovery of celestial bodies.
In 2003, in the photos of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists found a small spot in the sky, which at first thought was the light spot of the moon, but when the moon fell, it turned out to be a new asteroid.
After measuring the orbit and distance of this asteroid, the orbit of this asteroid is relatively fixed and will not deviate too much, so there is nothing special about this asteroid.
And human beings have discovered seven ancient planets 4,000 years ago, exactly: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, among the seven planets Uranus and Neptune are actually very easy to find planets, people have discovered these two planets when observing the sky on Earth a long time ago, even at night, they can be seen clearly.
Ancient human beings were also very hard to observe the sky, because the weather conditions may be cloudy or sunny, but these seven ancient planets are relatively bright and can be clearly seen at night.
So in the eyes of ancient people, these seven planets are relatively bright stars, but these stars do not appear all the time, some times will disappear, some times will encounter other stars, and even be blocked by shadows, but when these planets reappear, they will be very bright, so ancient people often regarded these planets as very important things.
And at the same time, they believe that every planet is very important, which leads to the fact that in Roman mythology, the name of each planet is associated with the belief of the gods, so the names of the major planets are associated with Roman mythology.
epilogue
Through this way of reduction, people can not only feel the tiny relative distance between the earth and other stars more vividly, but also have a deeper understanding of the universe.
Among the asteroids in the solar system, there are various different asteroids, and the size is also very different, most of these asteroids are ice bodies, and the Earth is formed by the impact of these asteroids.
Pluto was considered the largest star in the solar system after Saturn until 2006, when Pluto was redefined as a small planet due to its small size.