How to Make Solar System Mobile

Spread newspaper out onto a large work space. Put Styrofoam balls in order of solar system: sun (12-inch ball); Mercury (1-inch ball); Venus (3-inch ball); Earth (3-inch ball); Mars (2-inch ball); Jupiter (8-inch ball); Saturn (7-inch ball); Uranus (6-inch ball); Neptune (5-inch ball); and Pluto (1-inch ball).
Use Sharpie to label each planet with a small initial.
Unfold paper clips one fold and push into each planet and sun

Paint each planet a base color; let dry before applying detail color with a fine paintbrush.
Mercury: gray (black and white) with pink (red and white) squiggle lines.
Venus: orange (red and yellow) with red squiggle lines. Push 12 toothpicks into a circle going around the middle. Glue colorful ribbons to the end of the toothpicks.
Earth: blue with green (blue and yellow) countries.
Mars: red with fine black lines.
Jupiter: white with red and light orange (red, yellow and white) lines.
Saturn: white with light orange lines.
Uranus: green.
Neptune: blue.
Pluto: purple (red and blue).
Sun: yellow.

Using wire cutters, cut off the bottom (straight) part of each coat hanger. With needle-nose pliers, curl rough ends under into little circles. Curl hanging curl into a tighter circle.

Tie a piece of 12-inch string to each paper-clipped planet. Attach to the three coat hangers.

Base coat hanger: Tie Mercury and Venus to the ends and sun in the middle.

Second coat hanger: Tie Jupiter and Saturn to the ends, Earth and Mars on the middle of either side. Crisscross pipe cleaners over string to keep planets in the middle of coat hanger.

Third coat hanger: Tie Neptune and Uranus to the ends, Pluto to the middle.

Tie string to hanging curl of hangers two and three. Attach to the middle of base coat hanger.
Crisscross pipe cleaners over string to keep it from sliding around.

Tie last string to base coat hanger curl and suspend from ceiling.