Schematic illustration showing the scale of the Solar System compared to Europe. Imagine that the Sun were reduced to a diameter of 1 kilometre (km) –

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Schematic illustration showing the scale of the Solar System compared to Europe. Imagine that the Sun were reduced to a diameter of 1 kilometre (km) – a reduction factor of million. If we placed the Sun in the middle of London, UK, then the orbit of the outermost planet, Neptune, would pass through north-eastern Cyprus, 3240 km away, while Uranus would intersect the north of Iceland. Compared to our 1 km Sun, the planets would range in diameter from metres (Mercury) to metres (Jupiter). (The planets are shown to scale with respect to each other, but not with respect to their orbits.)

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Size: 5000px × 3759px
Photo credit: © MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, art, artwork, astronomy, cyprus, diagram, diameter, earth, europe, european, iceland, illustration, jupiter, london, mars, mercury, model, neptune, orbits, planetary, planets, radius, saturn, scale, schematic, solar, space, sun, system, uranus, venus