Planet Path
The Sun in our Planet Path
Our Planet Path covers all 8 of the planets within the solar system — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — as well as the 3 dwarf planets known at the time of its creation — Ceres, Pluto and Eris. To squeeze the solar system in our Visitor Centre and Arboretum we've needed to shrink it by a huge amount — each step you take between the planets represents 10 million kilometres! Even at that scale, you'll need to start from the Lovell Telescope to see the innermost planets, then venture to the far end of the Arboretum to find Eris.
Our rocky planets are represented by solid stone discs set into the ground, while the gas planets have a series of small stainless steel discs showing their size. They are all to scale, where the Sun is the size of the Lovell Telescope, so that 1 cm represents 180 kilometres. For a map of the path, see our Planet Path worksheet.
The Planet Path was funded by STFC.
