Methods II Week 7: Earth, Sun, Moon—Part 2

Today in lab, we had to try to create a solar system to scale using materials in the class. Our group found a lot of difficulty trying to adjust the scale so you could actually see all of the planets while being able to have a realistic distance between the planets and the sun. We were not able to show where Jupiter ended up because our scale had it at 167m from the sun.  

The big question was, can we develop a solar system to scale? We decided, no, realistically, we cannot. 

From Thursday's lecture, I was absent from class, but based on the slides, I learned that there are still many misconceptions regarding the moon's phases and how we see the moon. I also learned that there are many different theories as to how the moon formed but not really enough evidence to truly determine where it came from or how it ended up orbiting the earth. 

In this week's reading, 

  • I learned that planets have to meet 3 qualifications to be considered a planet in our solar system. They have to orbit the sun, have gravity that form it into a round shape, and it must have gravitational dominance that either attracts or ejects other smaller bodies from that region of space. 
  • I found the theory about the size of rocky/gaseous planets helpful because it helps stick in my mind about the size of the planets closer/further to/from the sun and what they are made up of. 
  • I need more information on: If the earth changed its position in the orbit of the sun/the order of the planets, would it become more like the planets around it or stay similar composition? (Would the earth become rockier/smaller if it were closer, or bigger/more gaseous if it moved further?)

Questions/Concerns/Comments: I like having both to-scale representations and not-to-scale representations of the solar system because I think it is helpful to show all of the planets in their lineup/order and what they look like, but it is important that students know just how large/small the sizes of the planets are in comparison to other planets (ex. the sun vs earth) and how far away they are so they understand how hard it would be to travel to other planets. 

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