I have an Astronomy riddle

Question

If Mars was the size of tea cup saucer and Venus the size of a dinner plate with Jupiter the size of a quarter and Saturn the size of a nickle with Uranus the size of a penny and Neptune the size of a dime in our plane view of the sky how close whould they all be?

Answer 1

If they were to appear in the sky at those sizes, who would notice them in the first place? And without anyone noticing them who would calculate the distances between them?

Now if you were to say calculate the distance between them and the earth, first more information would be needed, i.e. the position they are in the sky and the actual size they are in the first place and not from our point of view.

So after the calculation of what size they actually are, you would mearly have to take their size and divide it by the size of the object you described above. Now the difference could tell you how far away they are by taking the difference in size of the planet and the object and and multiplying the size of the object till it meets the size of the planet and multiply that by your choice in distance, e.g. size*distance (miles).

Answer 2

Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune?????????

Answer 3

Close enough that Earth would not survive.  That is interesting and I admit I am terrible at mathematics, but I like this question.  I will return to see others results.  Please post answer if no one can figure it out.  I am dying of curiosity.  Thanks

Answer 4

It is like holding a snake very near to eyes so the fangs can reach your eyes or at arm's length, Snake Catcher!

The thing is not Dinner plates or saucers. If that is the case, you didn't mention the sizes of Sun and Moon. It is how far from your eyes the dinner plate or whatever you are holding, is from the eyes. A dime held near the eye looks bigger then dinner plate at arm's length. It is called 'angle'; angle subtended by the object at the pupil of the eye. At half the distance it appears double (dimension across or lengthwise).

In crude terms a dinner plate held at a distance of dinner plate will subtend 1 Radian of angle at eye. You can replicate this experiment with saucer with the same result (saucer plate at saucer's distance).  

Venus' angle 1/9th milliRad (about 3/4 minute of arc) when it is clearest from Earth. Your dinner plate at 2.7 km will simulate this.

Mars at opposition will be at 1/12 milliRad (1/210th degree). Your saucer at 900 meters will do this. Jupiter at opposition will be at 4/9th milliRad (3/4 minute of arc); that is a quarter at 34 meters. Saturn at opposition will be at about 1/10 milliRad (1/110 th degree), that is your nickel (not 'nickle') 200 meters. And so on.

Answer 5

maybe not any closer, they just change their size but not the distance..  

Answer 6

coz they are smaller they would be further apart

Answer 7

This isn't a riddle - this is a work of complete fiction. Seeing as you've made Venus ten times the size of Jupiter, then there's no logical answer to your question.

So I'll just snatch an answer out of the cosmos and say they'd all be 3.74ft apart.

Answer 8

I assume you are not talking about a "scale" model.

That being the case, the question is not sensible, as  the laws governing planetary movement would not allow that to happen.

i.e. for Mars to be the size you describe it would have to be considerably closer than it is at the moment.

The centrifugal and centripedal forces present in the solar system would not allow that to happen.  In fact all the planets distances from the sun are pretty much fixed by the laws (Newton did it first) of gravitation and the forces I have mentioned.

Answer 9

As close as they are now.