COLLISION OF THE PLANETS

A story that describes the solar system and why there could never be a collision of the planets

Did you know that when we look up and see the stars and planets filling the sky, some might wonder if there might not be a collision up there some day?  But luckily, this is not likely to happen.

 

COULD THERE BE A COLLISION OF THE PLANETS?

   What we don't realize when we look up is how much farther away certain stars and planets are from the earth than others. To get a better idea of this, let's consider our solar sysem and its planets. The planets never escape from the pull or attraction of the sun.  They keep on moving around it in orbits that are not quite circles.  Their speeds depend on their distances from the sun.

   So let's start by imagining that YOUR OWN HEAD is the sun, both in its SIZE and LOCATION in the solar system.  Your head is then in the center of a number of rings of different sizes  These rings are the orbits which the planets travel around the sun.

    With your head as the center. Mercury revolving in the nearest ring, is 20 feet away from you! It is about as large as the dot at the end of this sentence. (Remember, the size of your head is the size of the sun.) Venus moves around in the second ring 39 feet away, and is about the size of the letter "o." In the third ring is our own planet Earth, a bit larger than Venus. It is 54 feet from your head (actually 93,000,000 miles away from the sun).  

    COOOOOLLLL!!

 

   In the fourth ring is Mars, smaller than the earth, and 82 feet away.  Next we come to Jupiter, the largest of all the planets.  In relation to your head (the sun) it looks like a marble, and is as far from your head as the length of a football field! On the sixth ring is Saturn, 1/2 inch in diameter, and nearly a city block away.

  

   Uranus, 1/5 inch in diamer, is nearly two blocks away. Neptune, a little smaller than Uranus, is nearly three blocks away.  And Pluto, about half the size of the earth, is nearly four blocks away! Since each of them goes around you in its orbit without ever changing, you can see why they're not likely to bump into each other!

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Collision of the Planets