Our solar system has eight known

planets, which all orbit the Sun. Year 5 craft

You can make an awesome model, your own...
showing the planets in order of
their distance from the Sun.
solar system
You will need:
Mercury • Scissors
• Sticky tape
or glue stick

Venus
Sun

Jupiter

Mars Earth

© Launchpad Publishing Ltd 2018, illustrations © Clive Goodyer

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune
The model isn’t to scale because if you cut out
a Sun measuring 10 cm across, the Earth at
the same scale would measure less than one
millimetre, and be placed 10.75 metres away!

whizzpopbang/schools
 What you do:
1. Cut out the planets, the Sun and
the connecting strips.
2. Attach one end of each connecting strip to the back
of the correct planet with sticky tape or glue.
3. Attach the other end of the connecting strips
to the back of the Sun, and you’re finished!

SUN
Diameter 1,391,016 km
© Launchpad Publishing Ltd 2018, illustrations © Clive Goodyer

The Sun is so massive

it contains 99.86%
of the entire mass
in the solar system.

whizzpopbang/schools
 The distances between the Sun and the planets vary because of the planets’
elliptical (oval-shaped) orbits. We’ve used average distances on these strips.

Mercury

Not to scale

the Kuiper belt

57.9 million km from Sun, diameter 4,780 km

beyond Neptune.
Mars and Jupiter, and
belt between the orbits of
Venus

formed. Much of this debris

can be found in the asteroid
108.2 million km from Sun, diameter 12,104 km

left over from when the solar system

more than 3,400 comets, and countless
earth

meteoroids and smaller particles of debris,

investigated), more than 715,000 asteroids,
149.6 million km from Sun, diameter 12,756 km

moons (with another 25 possible moons being

it. Our solar system, with the Sun at the centre,
has eight planets, five known dwarf planets, 149 known
mars
227.9 million km from Sun, diameter 6,780 km A solar system is a star and all the objects that orbit around

jupiter
778.6 million km from Sun, diameter 139,822 km

saturn
1,433.5 million km from Sun, diameter 116,464 km

uranus
2,872.5 million km from Sun, diameter 50,724 km

neptune
4,495.1 million km from Sun, diameter 49,248 km

whizzpopbang/schools
© Launchpad Publishing Ltd 2018, illustrations © Clive Goodyer
 © Launchpad Publishing Ltd 2018
Mercury has ‘wrinkles’ called
Lobate Scarps, up to a mile high
A day on Venus lasts longer
than a year on Venus
The Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing,
at about 17 milliseconds per 100 years
Mars has the largest known volcano in
the solar system, called Olympus Mons
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a huge storm
that has raged for at least 350 years
Saturn’s rings are made of lumps of ice and rock, some
as small as a grain of sand, others as large as a house

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Uranus’s axis tilts at almost 98 degrees,
meaning it orbits the Sun lying on its side
A year on Neptune lasts 165 Earth years