(upbeat music) - Hi, everybody.

I'm Courtney Cochran, back with another science lesson.

Let's get ready for liftoff.

I've got my friend Tristan here today.

Tristan's gonna help us out.

Tristan, do you like looking at the night sky?

- I love it!

- [Courtney] Why do you love it?

- Looking at all the stars up there is so beautiful!

- It is so beautiful.

And sometimes you can see planets.

Depending on the time of the year you can see different planets.

Did you know that?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

They're all different distances from the Sun, everything in the solar system, and that's why we can see different things at different times in the year when we look up at the night sky.

I have a model that shows us how that works and why it works.

So, if I take a long strip of paper and I write the Sun at one end and Pluto at the other end, and I fold it in half, notice the Sun is here in our solar system and Pluto is the furthest away.

If I fold it in half, what planet do you think I would put in the very middle?

If you look at the list of planets, what would you guess?

- Um, Jupiter.

- Jupiter.

That's a great guess.

In fact, it's actually Uranus right in the middle.

Isn't that crazy?

If we fold it in half again and make two new lines, what do you think is going to come before Uranus and after Uranus?

- Before Uranus and after?

- If you look at this list.... - Saturn and Neptune.

- That's right!

Saturn and Neptune go there on our model.

Then, we're gonna take the Sun and we're gonna fold it down to Saturn.

And what planet comes before Saturn?

- Uranus!

- Almost.

Jupiter, right?

Then we're gonna take the Sun, we're gonna make lots of folds, we're taking the Sun and we're taking it all the way down to Jupiter now.

And we're gonna pull it back up and then we would label it with the asteroid belt.

Yes.

If we fold it again, down to the asteroid belt and bring it back up, we have.... - Mars!

- Mars!

And we're gonna fold it two more times.

You ready for this?

These are gonna be tiny folds.

We fold the Sun down to Mars, and then we fold that fold again and that gives us three lines where we put which three planets?

- Earth, Venus, and Mercury.

- That's right!

Look at this, Tristan.

Isn't that crazy?

All, everything in our solar system and and all of these planets smooshed real close next to the Sun.

I tell you what, Tristan, why don't we make one for you, and the students at home can follow along, okay?

- Okay.

- Okay, so, the first thing we do is we're gonna fold this in half.

Can you make a crease in the middle for me?

And, then we put Uranus in the middle.

Everybody at home, don't forget to join us on Thursday for our very last science lesson of Rise and Shine.

(upbeat music)