How can a scale model be used to represent the relative distances between celestial bodies in the solar system

A solar system is a group of planets and other space material orbiting (going around) a star. In our solar system, that star is better known as the Sun and the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The solar system models you've seen before probably don't show how much bigger some planets are than others, or, more importantly for space travel, how far away the planets are from the Sun and each other. The Earth is about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from the Sun. Because this distance is so important to us Earthlings, it has been given a special name, called the Astronomical Unit (A. U.) for short. The Earth is one astronomical unit from the sun. Planets that are closer to the Sun than the Earth have a measured distance of less than one A. U. while objects farther from the Sun than Earth have a measured distance of greater than one A. U.

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