Walk your Solar System
"Space, the final frontier." That's what they say on Star Trek, right? So how big is space and this final frontier anyway? Really big! But let's just stick to our neighborhood for now and maybe that will help us understand how vast space is and where in fact we are in it. This is a fun GeoLab but you're going to need to do some serious walking so go find a comfortable pair of sneakers and put them on. I mentioned sticking to our neighborhood and that means sticking to our Solar System. For this GeoLab you will be walking our Solar System from the center (our sun) outward stoping at each planet on the way until we reach the furthest one, Neptune (Pluto we miss you!) Of course we can not hope to succeed in this quest unless we first shrink our solar system down to a manageable size, let's say then that the sun will now be the size of a soccer ball. That means that the planets and the space between them will also be shrunk down by that same ratio.
Here's what you will need for your journey:
- One Soccer ball to represent the sun (a basketball also works for this).
- Three straight pins to represent Mercury, Mars, and the Earth's Moon. (I would take a moment to tape each of these pins to an index card so they don't poke holes in you on your journey.
- Two peppercorns, one for Venus and one for Earth.
- One bottle cap for Jupiter.
- One large marble for Saturn.
- Two unpopped kernels of popcorn for Uranus and Neptune.
- One Camera, digital works best.
- One very long straight street with a tall and very visible landmark.
- One friend to go with you to keep track of your sun (the soccer ball).
- One bottle of water (in case you get thirsty).
- A cell phone to call for a ride when you reach Pluto (a good old-fashioned payphone will work just fine provided you can find one!).
- Documents for this GeoLab.
Now you are ready to begin your journey. Collect all the items you need and begin your journey at the tall and very visible landmark on the straight street you chose for this assignment (for those of you doing this in Napa some recommended streets might be Dry Creek Rd. from Redwood Rd. north, Solano Ave. north of town, and Jefferson St. going north from Napa Creek).
Have your friend hold the ball where you can see it just below the very tall landmark. Each time you count your paces and reach another planet, stop, turn around and looking back at your friend holding the mini-sun in the direction you came from, snap a picture. At the end of your journey you will have nine pictures, one from each planet looking back at the sun.
Pacing Between Planets
OK, you need to take good honest full strides, no baby steps!
- Starting at the Sun take 10 good steps, you are now at Mercury, a pin. Snap a picture.
- Take 9 more steps to get to Venus, a peppercorn. Snap a picture.
- From Venus to your home planet Earth, a peppercorn, take 7 more steps. Stop here for a moment and consider our Moon. Hold up a pin about a thumbs length from the earth and this will represent the farthest distance from Earth ever travelled by man in space. Not very far. Snap a picture.
- From Earth take 14 more steps to get to Mars, a pin. Snap a picture. Now get ready to take a real walk because we're just getting started here.
- Now take 95 steps to get to Jupiter, a bottle cap. Snap a picture.
- Next it's off to Saturn, a marble. Take 112 steps. Snap a picture.
- On to Uranus, a kernel of corn, 249 steps. Snap a picture.
- Take 281 more steps and you will arrive at Neptune, another corn kernel. Snap a picture.
You are now a little less than 1/2 mile from where you started, can you see the Sun? How about your home, the Earth? Let's say you wanted to leave our Solar System and travel to the closest star to our Sun, a star called Proxima Centauri. You'd better go get some more supplies 'cause your are going to need to walk another 4,200 miles, that should take you 140 more days, give or take a few. So what's the point you ask? It is that we live in a vast universe and that when answering the important geographic question, "Where is it?" In the big picture, the answer is not always easy to come up with.
The Assignment
Now, you and your friend will need to download the assignment sheets for this GeoLab.
You don't need to complete the section on Pluto (now a Dwarf Planet)
Carefully follow the directions on the assignment sheet to complete the lab. When you are doing the write up for this lab you will need to visit the following website to gather some facts about each of the planets you visited:
NASA - Solar System Exploration
When you are finished with the write up and you have attached all the necessary items, turn in your lab to Mr Dresel.