Thread: "Explain the relative distance between planets and the sun." -Question Explanation?

I am wondering what they are actually asking me for. When they say "relative", what do they mean? I get the idea that they are not asking me for a number of how far away the planet is, but something else. Anyone who gets it care to explain what they mean by this?

They are asking for a relative distance because depending upon the year, the planets are sometimes further away from the sun than other periods. The planets orbits pattern is not a perfect sphere around the sun. It is elliptical shape. Therefore the distances will vary depending upon the time of year.

Basically they are asking the average or approximate distances between planets and the sun.

Here is a site that you remember the distance via Bode's Law.
http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/uc/solar_system/2/ucss2_2a.html

this is most likely a poorly written question. Distance is relative, meaning that something may be far from one point of view, but close to another. So my guess is what they're asking is the distance each planet is to the sun relative to the distance the Earth is from the sun. Now the question becomes are they just asking for Astronomical Units (AUs) which sets Earths distance from the Sun to 1, or are they asking for a percentage or what?

I'd give them the answers in AUs if I were you.

sounds to me like your teacher is expecting an answer quoting Bode's Law or something.

Bode's Law, isnt really much of a Law... but it certainly is an effective measure of the "relative distances" between planets.