In the meantime, I ordered a sodalite sphere that was perfect for Earth. The listing for it labeled it as 22mm, so I based all of my calculations on sizes I needed for the planets, sun, and moon on that. It turns out it was actually 26mm. I ordered 22m spheres for Venus and Earth, but didn’t care for either one and ended up with the original spheres. This meant new spheres for everything else. 

Originally, I wanted everything to light up under UV light, but trying to find spheres of the correct color and size were difficult. Adding in the requirement for UV reactive made it impossible.

• Mercury: This was easy. I picked an 8mm Sodalite bead and stuck with it the entire time.
• Venus: Started out with 1″ Uranium glass, switched to 22mm Carnelian Snakeskin, and then back to the Uranium Glass.
• Earth: Started out with 26mm Sodalite, switched to 22mm Sodalite, and then back to the original
• Moon: I originally wanted to go with Selenite because of the association with the Moon, but the color wasn’t right. I chose a 6mm Sodalite Syenite instead.
• Mars: This was the most difficult sphere to choose. I started out with 20mm Red Jasper and then realized Mars should be half the size of Earth. I switched to 12mm Red Jasper, but I was still searching for UV reactive spheres and wanted to try something else. An 11mm Synthetic Ruby definitely glowed, but it was transparent and that would not do. An 11mm Rhodonite sphere was too pink. It was at the 11mm Thulite that I realized I had the size wrong for Earth and needed 13mm. Finally I ordered a 13mm Brick Red Jasper (I forgot I had the 12mm or would have used that).
• Jupiter: The 55mm Pistachio Green Calcite sphere was too small compared to the size of Saturn’s rings I was going to make, so I ordered the 65mm Rainbow Onyx one. It is sooooo much better.
• Saturn: I started out with a 40mm Yellow Fluorite that looks brown with no lines, but in direct light is yellow with lines. Then I switched to a 45mm Banded Calcite that did not work with the rings I made since I used a 50mm cylinder for the interior. Lastly, I found what was advertised as Afghanistan Jade aka Serpentine, which I thought only came in green. 
• Uranus: The 30mm Fluorite is a lovely teal color, but ended up being too dark. The 32mm Amazonite was a lovely color, but the pattern on it did not look right. I settled on a 32mm Beryl.
• Neptune: The 32mm Blue Calcite was too crackly. The 30mm Labradorite was too dark. I chose the 30mm Blue Chalcedony, which I actually purchased first.
• Pluto: I know, Pluto got demoted. I was a kid in the ’80s when it was still one of the nine planets. 4mm is not a lot to work with. I started with Picture Jasper, then Pink White “Turquoise,” and finally Breccia Jasper.

I purchased acrylic display stands to set the larger spheres on and painted and tied the fishing line through the smaller beads.