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Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre Key Stage 1 & EY
For group leaders guiding pupils in groups
In the Planet Pavilion
Above you is the Jodrell Bank Orrery!
An orrery is a moving clockwork model of the Solar System.
If the orrery is not moving, pupils can turn the handle to make it move!
The orrery planets orbit much faster than the planets in real life.
1 minute for the orrery = 1 Earth year
The time it takes for the planets to go round the Sun in real life and in the orrery are shown below:
Planet
Real time to complete
one orbit of the Sun
Time taken in the
orrery
Mercury
88 days
14 seconds
Venus
225 days
37 seconds
Earth
365 days (1 year)
1 minute
Mars
687 days (1.9 years)
1 minute 53 seconds
Jupiter
12 years
11 minutes 15 seconds
Saturn
29 years
29 minutes 35 seconds
Uranus
84 years
1 hr 24 mins 54 secs
Neptune
165 years
2 hrs 45 mins 30 secs
Please note: Orreries do not show sizes or distances to scale!
If the Sun were the size shown, the Earth would be a ball 1.5 millimetres across!
Also, on that scale, the Earth would be 15 metres away from the Sun!
Questions you could ask your pupils…
1. How many planets are there in the Solar System? Eight
2. What do all the planets go around? The Sun
3. Which planet is orbiting the Sun the quickest? Mercury
4. Which planet is orbiting the Sun the slowest? Neptune
5. Which planet is the biggest? Jupiter
6. Which planet is the smallest? Mercury
7. Which planet has rings? Saturn
8. Can they find the Earth? Earth is the one spinning. (Please note that all the planets really spin
[at different speeds], but only the Earth is shown spinning in the orrery, for simplicity)
9. What is going around the Earth? The Moon. (Please note that most of the other planets have
moons as well (only Mercury and Venus don’t), but only the Earth’s is shown, for simplicity)
10. What is the biggest thing in the whole Solar System? The Sun
11. What is the Sun? A star
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre Key Stage 1 & EY
For group leaders guiding pupils in groups
In the Space Pavilion
Here are some things we think are particularly appropriate for EY & Key Stage 1 pupils
The wooden model of the Lovell telescope.
Pupils can move this model to see how the Lovell telescope moves
 The telescope controller can point the Lovell telescope anywhere in the sky, to look at
interesting objects, such as stars and galaxies
 Although it resembles a satellite dish (like a sky-dish) the Lovell telescope does not
pick up signals from satellites; it picks up radio waves from objects in space
The TV screen that shows you in strange colours.
 This camera detects heat instead of light.
 If pupils can’t see themselves on the screen, they are too close! Get them to move
backwards from the screen.
 There is a scale on the right hand side of the screen. Colours at the top are hottest,
colours at the bottom are coolest.
Question you could ask here: Which part of you is the hottest? Face/head
Below are some things your pupils can try…
a) Try holding up the props which are in front of the screen. Which ones can your eyes
see through? What about on the camera? Is it the same, or is it different?
Light cannot pass through the black plastic bag, but heat can, so it looks
transparent on the camera!
Light can pass through the plastic face-mask, but heat cannot, so it looks
opaque on the camera.
b) Try rubbing your hands together and showing them to the camera. Can you get them
to change colour?
When you rub your hands together, the friction between them warms them
up. You may be able to see this extra warmth on the camera.
c) Try placing your hand on something which is not hot (like a piece of paper) for a few
seconds, then hold it up to the camera. Can you make a hand-print?
The warmth from your hand is passed to the paper. The camera can then see
this heat on the paper.
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre Key Stage 1 & EY
For group leaders guiding pupils in groups
In the Space Pavilion (Page 2)
The black hole model
 Pupils can try rolling a ball into the black hole.
 Gravity will pull the ball down the hole, just like a real black hole!
The Plasma ball
 The centre of this ball is charged with electricity
 As electric sparks jump from the centre, the gas inside the ball heats up and glows
 When you touch the ball, the electricity jumps to you. It actually travels through your
body and down into the floor.
The ‘Doppler wobble’ game
 This is the small box in the middle of the floor.
 Can pupils balance the rods on the stand and then spin them around?
 [This shows that when planets go round stars, the stars actually move round a bit too!]
The see-through telescope
 This is a real telescope. Pupils can look through the eye-piece, to see a magnified
picture of a galaxy. The picture is high up on the far wall (just behind the rotating
pulsar model).
 If pupils cannot see anything, make sure they are not standing in front of the
telescope as this will block the view!
The eye-piece that allows you to see your own eye
 Look into the eye-piece and adjust the light level using the slider.
 Pupils will be able to see the pupils in their eyes getting larger when the light gets
dimmer and smaller when the light gets brighter.
 Our eyes automatically adjust to let in the right amount of light; large enough so we
can see, but not too much so our eyes are damaged.
 [This explains why the Lovell telescope needs to be so big: the signals it picks up are
very faint, so it has to be very large to pick them up. It’s just like a pupil growing bigger
in dim light, to collect more light to see.]
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre Key Stage 1 & EY
For group leaders guiding pupils in groups
On the Planet Path!
Here is a tour you could lead along the Planet Path. Good luck!
You are about to go on a journey through the Solar System!
Start at the red and yellow ball near the Lovell telescope.
This ball represents the object at the centre of our Solar System.
1. What is this object, at the centre of the Solar System? The Sun
Close to this ball, you will find four circular metal discs on the ground.
These are the first four planets. See if you can find them!
The planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
Look at the sizes of these planets on the ground.
That’s how big they would be, if the Sun were the size of the Lovell telescope dish!
These four planets are the small rocky planets (rocky because they are made of rock!)
2. Which of the four rocky planets is the largest? The Earth
3. Which of these do you think is the hottest planet? Venus.
Venus has a very thick atmosphere (a lot of air). This acts like a thick duvet trapping in
the heat, meaning Venus is the hottest planet in the Solar System at 470°C! That’s
even hotter than the planet Mercury, which is 450˚C on the day side.
Walk along the path towards the Whispering Dishes.
Try and find Jupiter along the way!
Jupiter is represented by a ring of small metal discs in the ground (in the grass, opposite
the door to the Space Pavilion building). If you are visiting in spring, Jupiter may be a large
circle of daffodils.
Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre Key Stage 1 & EY
For group leaders guiding pupils in groups
On the Planet Path! (Page 2)
At Jupiter, you have already travelled 800 million kilometres through the Solar System!
In real life, it would take a rocket about 2 years to travel from Earth to Jupiter!
4. Have a guess... how many times wider than the Earth, do you think Jupiter is? 10
Did you know that all the planets spin around?
5. How long does it take for the Earth to spin around once? One day (24 hours)
Jupiter spins round quicker than any of the other planets!
Jupiter spins around once every 10 hours!
All this spinning makes Jupiter bulge in the middle and causes fierce whirlwinds!
Two of the nearby interactive outdoor exhibits show these effects – the rope spinning one
and the vortex one (NB: ‘the vortex’ is only operational during the warm summer months).
Now go further towards the Whispering Dishes.
Find Saturn in between the two dishes and stand on it.
Saturn is again represented by a ring of small metal discs in the grass.
If you are visiting in spring, Saturn may be a circle of daffodils.
6. Which is bigger, Saturn or Jupiter? Jupiter
Jupiter is the biggest planet in the Solar System. Saturn is the second biggest.
7. Which two planets haven’t you seen on the Planet Path yet…? Uranus and Neptune
These two planets are so far away from the Sun, that you’d have to go all the way into the
Jodrell Bank Gardens to find them! (But there may not be time to do this now!)
8. Are the planets in the Solar System spaced out evenly? No
9. There used to be another planet, but in 2006 scientists decided it wouldn’t be called
a planet anymore.
a) Does anyone know its name? Pluto
b) What kind of object is this called now? A dwarf planet
It was decided Pluto was too small to be a planet. It is about half the size of
Mercury and about two thirds the size of our Moon.