Sweden Solar System

Re:Sweden Solar System by aetherson on Sunday December 31, 2023 @04:50PM (#38827808)

I think this is near-impossible. The diameter of earth is about 12,700 km. So if the distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri were "the maximum distance available on Earth," then the scale is 3.25 billion to 1.

The sun's radius is about 696,000 km, so 7x10^6 meters, so at 3.25 x 10^9:1 scale, it's about 2mm across. The planets would all be specks. You could see orbits, though they'd be small. And that's if you place your alpha centauri model literally "on the other side of the world" from your sol model.

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Re:Sweden Solar System by jimbobthrowawy on Sunday December 31, 2023 @09:15PM (#38829220)

I think you can do very slightly better by using great circle distances rather than straight lines cutting through the earth. After all, I think that's what this model is doing.

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Re:Sweden Solar System by aetherson on Sunday December 31, 2023 @10:19PM (#38829510)

Sure, it could be half the circumference of the earth instead of the diameter. The circumference is pi times the diameter, so half the circumference is a little over 1.5x the diameter -- the sun could be 3mm across instead of 2mm.

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