Fact Lab · visual scale

Solar System Scale

Make Earth any size you want. FactToon scales the Moon, Sun and the space between them to match.

Interactive scale model

If Earth were 1 m wide…

The ratios stay the same at every model size. Change one number and the whole Earth–Moon–Sun model updates.

Scale1:12.74 million

Moon diameter

27.27 cm27.27% of Earth’s diameter

Earth–Moon distance

30.168 maverage center-to-center distance · 30.17 Earth diameters

Sun diameter

109.198 m109.2× Earth’s diameter

Earth–Sun reference distance

11.741 km1 au · 11,741 Earth diameters

Actually to scale

Earth and Moon size + distance

This strip uses one screen unit per Earth radius, so the Earth–Moon spacing and their relative diameters are drawn to the same linear scale. The Sun cannot fit on this strip: at the same scale its center would be about 389× farther away than the Moon.

Earth and Moon drawn to the same size and distance scaleEarth is shown with a radius of ten units. The Moon is about 27 percent of Earth diameter and its center is about 30 Earth diameters away.EarthMoon≈ 30.17 Earth diameters

If your Earth is 1 m wide, put a 27.27 cm Moon about 30.168 m away. The Sun would be 109.198 m wide and roughly 11.741 km away.

Reference values

Where the ratios come from

FactToon uses NASA’s volumetric mean radii: Earth 6,371.0 km, Moon 1,737.4 km, and Sun 695,700 km. The average Earth–Moon distance is 384,400 km. One astronomical unit is defined as exactly 149,597,870.7 km.

Distances here are center-to-center reference distances. The Earth–Moon distance varies through the Moon’s orbit, and Earth’s actual distance from the Sun varies through the year.