Journey into our solar system

This week, with TOPLA you will have stars in your eyes. TOPLA offers you an activity in SCIENCE: create your own solar system. Travel like an astronaut aboard his space rocket between the planets, get close to the sun... But be careful not to burn your wings!

Material :

• 8 polystyrene balls
• Paint, brushes
• 8 skewers
• An orange or a grapefruit
• 1 pair of scissors
• 1 knife

Step 1

Start by gathering all your materials.

We take 8 polystyrene balls to represent the 8 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (in order of proximity to the Sun!)

Step 2

Paint your planets, we decided to represent Mercury in gray, Venus in red and orange, Earth in blue and green for the continents, Mars in dark red, Jupiter in orange, Saturn in yellow, Uranus in light blue and Neptune in dark blue.

Step 3

Using a compass, draw 2 circles, cut them out and paint them: one in blue (it will represent the rings of Uranus), the other in red/orange/yellow (it will represent the rings of Saturn). Paint both sides of your circles carefully.

Step 4

Take the 2 balls which represent Uranus and Saturn: cut them in two.

Glue the two circles on one part of the balls. Then, glue the other part of the ball on top of the paper circle. You can try to cut out the inside of the rings, like in the photo, but it's not necessary!

Step 5

Now take 8 skewers and cut them all in different sizes, from smallest to largest. You can paint them if you want, for more colors!

Step 6

Take an orange or a grapefruit and surround the fruit with a sheet of paper that you will paint yellow, to represent the sun.

The solar system was formed about 5 billion years ago. It is composed of a star: the Sun , and 8 planets (named in step 1!) that orbit the Sun. These planets are the satellites of the Sun.

Step 7

Stick the skewers into your planets: the smallest skewer goes to Mercury, because Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun! The largest skewer goes to Neptune, which is the planet furthest from the Sun!

Arrange your planets in order: the closer the planet is to the sun, the smaller the spade.

The closer a planet is to the Sun, the faster it orbits the Sun. For example: the Earth orbits the Sun and takes one year to do one orbit!

Step 8

Here is the final result! Stick the spikes into the orange covered with yellow paper. You can decorate your super solar system with little stars if you want!

Our solar system is part of the galaxy called the Milky Way which contains thousands of other stars.