Comparing Size and Distance of the Sun to the Earth and the Moon!

Even though the average distance from the Sun to the Earth is about 93 million miles, the Sun plays a huge role in creating weather in space, on Earth, and on the Moon.  In this activity, you will compare the size of Earth and the Moon to the Sun with cutouts.  You will also  see how far away the Earth is from the Sun with a scale model.

What you need:

• Printed out page of scale models of the Sun, Earth and Moon.
• Scissors
• Ruler

What to do:

1. Print out the scale models located on page 12 here.

2. Once you have printed the page, cut out the Sun, Earth and Moon using your scissors.

3. Place each cutout side by side to compare their sizes.  As you can see, the Sun is much larger than the Moon and Earth!

4. Next, you will use the cutouts and your ruler to see how far Earth is from the Sun. You will need lots of space for this part of the activity, so you may want to go outside.

5. Place the Sun on a flat surface.  Use the ruler to measure and place the Earth about 50 feet away from the Sun.  This is a scale model representation for how far away the Earth is from the Sun.  Each foot in your model represents about 1.86 million miles!  For comparison, the distance between New York City and Los Angeles is only about 2,500 miles.

Activity inspired by the Space Weather Center.  Image courtesy of NASA (the white dot represents Earth).