Solar System

One of the most amazing things about our solar system is the sheer scale of it. In fact it is so big that it is very difficult for us to comprehend it at all. This page is designed to try to give you some idea of just how much empty space there is out there by representing the solar system with a scale model. 1 pixel represents approximately 2000 kilometres, which means that the whole of Europe would be completely covered by the dot on this i!

Try scrolling through the space between planets using your keyboard's arrow keys and the 'Page up' and 'Page down' buttons, and keep an eye on the scrollbar to see where you are in the solar system. Just click on the link below to open the model in a new window, and close the window when you have finished to get back here. One word of warning though, the solar system is so huge you may find it difficult to find the planets at all amongst all the blank space! (I have provided links between neighbouring planets to make the journey easier).

I hope that this page gives you some idea of the enormous scale of our solar system, but remember that space doesn't end after Pluto. If you find the amount of empty space in our solar system amazing, just think about the space between stars or the space between galaxies. To reach the nearest star to our Sun you would have to travel almost 10,000 times further than we did to reach Pluto. To reach the Andromeda Galaxy, one of our nearest galactic neighbours it would be almost 4 billion times as far!