Infinite Solar System

ACTUAL SIZE: 1,391,400 km

SCALE 1:30 BILLION

If our solar system were scaled to the 200 meter length of the Infinite Corridor, placing the sun here at the edge of Lobby 7 results in Pluto’s orbit being at the far east end of the corridor in Building 8.

On this length scale, you can see the Sun is reduced to the size of a golf ball! The nearest exoplanet system, containing a similar golf-ball-sized host star, Proxima Centauri, would be 1300 km away — the distance from here to Chicago.

ACTUAL SIZE: 4,879 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 5.79 x 10⁷ km

• Mercury rotates slowly, only 3 times for every 2 times it orbits the sun.
• Mercury has more craters and impact scars than any other planet.
• Mercury has the most eccentric (least circular) obrit of the inner planets.
• On this scale, due to its eccentricity, Mercury’s distance from the Sun varies between 1.5 and 2.3 meters.

ACTUAL SIZE: 12,104 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 1.08 x 10⁸ km

• Venus is surrounded by a thick atmosphere, blocking our view of the surface.
• The surface shown here is from orbiting spacecraft measurements using radar, an experiment led by the late MIT Professor Gordon Pettengill.

ACTUAL SIZE: 12,756 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 1.50 x 10⁸ km

• If you look closely at the Sun at the bottom of this panel, you’ll see the orbit of the Moon shown to scale with the Earth centered inside.
• The astronauts on Apollo 13 hold the record for the farthest humans have yet traveled from Earth, a distance of 248,655 miles. At this scale, we see that humans have traveled just 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) away from the cradle of Earth!
• Look carefully at the orientation of the 3D globe of the Earth to see where the view is centered — where else, but MIT as the “center of the universe.” 😉

ACTUAL SIZE: 6,792 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 2.28 x 10⁸ km

• Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury are known as the “inner planets” or “rocky, terrestrial planets”.
• As you look back at the Sun and other rocky planets, remember this model shows all the planets in perfect alignment — which never actually happens!
• That means this model shows Earth and Mars as close as they ever get, at 2.6 meters on this scale.
• At the farthest point in their orbits, Earth and Mars get more than 12.5 meters apart on this scale.

ACTUAL SIZE: 946 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 4.14 x 10⁸ km

• Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt. Like Pluto, it is called a “dwarf planet”.
• The topography of Mercury, Mars, and Ceres were mapped by spacecraft laser experiments led by MIT Professor Maria Zuber.
• The asteroid belt consists of millions of small rocky objects leftover from the formation of the solar system.
• On this scale the average distance between objects in the asteroid belt is about 4 cm (1.5 inches)!

ACTUAL SIZE: 142,984 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 7.79 x 10⁸ km

• If you stand back and look, you’ll notice Jupiter isn’t perfectly spherical. That’s because Jupiter rotates so fast (once per 10 hours!), it bulges out around its equator.
• Jupiter has more than 90 known moons.
• The four shown on the panel, with their orbits to scale, are the largest: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Found by Galileo Galilei in 1610, they were the first satellites discovered besides our own Moon.
• Known as the Galilean Satellites, these four are observable with a good pair of binoculars or a small telescope.

ACTUAL SIZE: 120,536 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 1.43 x 10⁹ km

• The rings in the 3D model are to scale with the planet, however Saturn’s rings are not solid. They are actually composed of countless tiny objects ranging from microscopic up to meter-sized.
• In addition to its rings, Saturn also has more than 140 known moons.
• Saturn is the least dense planet in the solar system.

ACTUAL SIZE: 51,118 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 2.87 x 10⁹ km

• Uranus’ spin axis is tipped over almost 98 degrees, so it looks more like it’s rolling than spinning.
• While Saturn’s rings are the most prominent and well known, Jupiter, Uranus, and Nepturne also have ring systems.
• The rings of Uranus were discovered in 1977 by MIT Professor James Elliot, who also discovered Pluto’s atmosphere.

ACTUAL SIZE: 49,528 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 4.50 x 10⁹ km

• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are known as the “outer planets” or “gas giants.”
• As you may have noticed, they are larger and increasingly spaced farther apart than the inner rocky planets.
• Sunlight scattering off methane molecules in the atmosphere of Neptune creates the vivid blue color.

ACTUAL SIZE: 2,374 km

ACTUAL DISTANCE: 5.91 x 10⁹ km

• Pluto has a highly eccentric orbit. Here it is shown at its average distance from the Sun.
• During its 248 year orbit, Pluto comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and goes so far away from the Sun that on this scale it would be out the window in Eastman Court!
• NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was the first to visit Pluto, taking 9.5 years to journey across the solar system. MIT faculty and alumni in both science and engineering played key roles in initiating, building, and operating the mission. New discoveries include finding a heart-shaped glacier of nitrogen ice that continues to sculpt Pluto’s surface.
• Turning back toward the Earth, consider the triumph of spaceflight for the New Horizons spacecraft to have hit its target point flying past Pluto to within a distance — on this scale — of less than the thickness of a human hair!