What is the size and location of planets in relation to our sun?

 I need a picture of the solar system, true to size and distance from each other and the sun.

There is no actual picture of the entire solar system. If one could be made, it is very unlikely that you would be able to see all the planets. I am sure you would only see The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn - as dots; maybe you will see Neptune and Uranus, that is about it. From earth if you look at Jupiter in the night sky it is as big as a star - though one of the brightest objects in night sky. From a position where you could see all the planets (the solar system is bigger than that, but let us restrict ourselves to only Pluto's orbit) you would see it as much smaller. Jupiter is 1,600 times bigger than earth (volume). Sun is a million times bigger. From most cities you can see Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus. From a position where you could take a picture of all the planets you wont see all of them.


I just remember I was talking about visibility of sun and planets. Actually if a photograph were taken Jupiter and sun will be visible. The Sun is a star it will be visible not due to its size but due to the amount of light it gives. If we plotted it on a graph based only on its size and not its luminosity, it will be as visible as anything on the graph and no more. So if we drew an illustration 1024 pixels wide (most 17 inch computer screens are 1024x768 pixels) and put sun on the left most pixel and Neptune on the right most pixel - none of them will be visible. The distance between sun and earth is 1 AU (1 astronomical unit). Sun's Diameter is 1/150 AU, Neptune is 30 AU away from sun. If we scale 30AU to a 1024 pixel screen every pixel is equal to 0.029 AU, anything smaller than 0.029 AU can not be represented on this screen, the sun is 0.006AU wide - 1/5th of a pixel. If you open MS Paint and put a dot with a pencil that is one pixel imagine 1/5th of that - that is sun's size scaled to a 1024x768 screen.


Anyway, Cronides' second link is the answer you are looking for.

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