Make a DIY Rolling Solar System

Materials you'll need

• Aluminum foil
• Scissors
• Color markers
• Marbles
• Baking pan or tray

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: Lay out a sheet of aluminum foil on a flat surface. Use color markers to draw a planet design — try Earth with blue oceans and green continents, a red rocky Mars, or a swirly yellow Jupiter. Make your design roughly the size of your fist.

Step 2: Cut the painted foil out in a circle shape, leaving a small border of unpainted foil around the edge.

Step 3: Place a marble in the center of the foil circle, then lightly fold the edges of the foil up and around the marble. Don't crumple it too tight — just wrap it loosely so the marble is nestled inside and the planet design faces outward.

Step 4: Repeat to make as many planets as you like, then place them in a baking pan or on a flat surface and give them a push.

Learn more

Your foil planet rolls because the marble inside gives it a round, weighted shape — just like a real planet, which is pulled into a sphere by its own gravity. Out in space, planets orbit the Sun in a curved path. That's because the Sun's gravity pulls each planet inward while the planet's own forward motion keeps carrying it along. These two forces balance each other out: too fast and a planet would fly off into space; too slow and it would fall into the Sun. When the speed is just right, you get a stable orbit.