If you’ve ever seen an illustration of the solar system, the odds are good that it was wrong. Not that it messed up the order of the planets, but that the scale was completely off. "Every single ...

Starting with an Earth the size of a marble, these folks built a full-scale model of our solar system across 7 miles of Nevada desert.

To show what our solar system truly looks like, DIY enthusiasts Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh had to drive to a gigantic dry lakebed in Nevada and build a scale model there.

Learn how to make a scale model of the Sun and the Earth with this guide for KS3 physics students aged 11-14 from BBC Bitesize.

Learn how to make a scale model of the Sun and the Earth with this guide for KS3 physics students aged 11-14 from BBC Bitesize.

Another way is to build a scale model in the real world. Real world solar system models can be found in lots of places, the one that inspired us was the Maine solar system model.

What the project really gets at is just how important scale is. In order to make a diagram of our solar system easy to read, one with to-scale orbits has inflated planet size.

We spent the time to research and plan our own installation, and it'll help you make the right decisions when you build out your own system.

Still from "To Scale: The Solar System," a 7-minute video that shows the construction of a scale-model solar system in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. (Image credit: Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh) ...

Two filmmakers built what might be the first-ever scale model of the Solar System in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, and it spanned seven miles.

Those proportions are kept honest in the scale model, in which an Earth that's only the size of a small marble calls for a solar system that's 7 miles wide.