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Maine Completes Largest To-Scale Solar System Model
Neophytus writes "The University of Maine has now almost completed its solar system model, to be unveiled officially on the June 14th at Westfield. The final planet, Uranus, will be set in place on the 13th. At forty miles from Pluto to The Sun and built to a scale of 1:93,000,000, it will be the largest three-dimensional scale model of the Solar System in North America."
...is located in Sweden.
This one is headquartered at Peoria, IL.. I don't think this one is in 3d.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Aroostook County, in Northern Maine, is building a 40-mile long scale model of the solar system, at a scale of 1 mile equaling the distance from earth to sun. The model extends along Route 1, between the University of Maine at Presque Isle campus and the Houlton Information Center at the end of I-95. The model has ten major components, those being the sun and the nine planets from Mercury to Pluto, with moons for Earth, Saturn, Jupiter (4) and Pluto.
The model serves as an educational resource and tourist attraction. It will also draw attention to Northern Maine, the university at Presque Isle, and the Northern Maine Museum of Science located there. All planets except Pluto would be visible from the road. Educational information on the planets would be found in the brochure, available at various places along Rt. 1. The small models are mounted on tall - ten foot high above ground level - posts to be viewed from the car, with the planets included within a 1-foot diameter semicircular structure to better show the tilt of the planets.
The planets are exhibited as three-dimensional models. The two largest planetary models (Jupiter and Saturn, measuring 4-5 feet across) and the two mid-sized planets (Uranus and Neptune, measuring 21-22 inches) require rather substantial monuments. However, there is local precedent and experience for models of this size, as both Presque Isle and Caribou have built large, permanent, monuments commemorating the first two balloon crossings of the Atlantic Ocean. These include models of the balloon envelopes that are larger in size than the envisioned planets. These models were constructed largely by local technical and high schools and funded by local service organizations. The solar system model requires a similar process in which local individuals and organizations take a direct role in construction and financing.
The last planet, Uranus, will be set on its base on June 13th. The formal unveiling of the Maine Solar System Model will happen at 1:00 on Saturday, June 14th 2003.
if you bothered to read anything, instead of assuming, you would find they had a budget of exactly $0 from outside sources other than volunteers from the community.
Add Ceres and some asteroids, to communicate just how empty an asteroid belt really is compared to the pictures in books and the depictions in sf films.
They didn't put Mars on Mars Hill. Probably for good reason, but it would have appealed to me.
Then something to explain that the nearest star is about 65,000 miles away on the same scale.
Gosh, that looks like a fun project.
After spending a few miserable years in ithaca, ny and staring at the "commons" walk for many a boring afternoon, I think your memories are escaping you. Pluto, is actually at the science center (somewhere on the "main road" route 13).
Ithaca's "carl sagan" walk is probably smaller than maines actually.
In fact the map is available on the net, if you want to take a look..
-bloo
You miss the point. Huge is meaningless. Is it Bigger than BIG?? I think these models are great. They allow people to wrap their minds around concepts of distance that are otherwise incomprehensible. Can you actually say that you can really comprehend light-years of distance and relate it to your own existence? It was interesting to note the comment that the model still has the next star at 65,000 miles away. It is a big universe. Every conceptual aid helps. Try envisioning the distance to the edge of the universe. That's huge. :)
Looking at the Jupiter webpage, it appears that they got carried away with the paint job. The earlier layers of painted bands look more faithful to me, then somebody put a "tomato soup" coat on it, hiding the rather even banding that is found on the real thing. Plus, the real thing is mostly light-tan, not red. I have seen the real thing through small telescopes, and Nasa tends to increase the contrast and color of their photos to bring out detail. But even those photos don't have so much red. The Mars team had extra paint or something? :-)
Further, it appears the models are round, but the larger planets are noticably "flattened" due to centrifugal rotational force.
Table-ized A.I.
As an astro minor at cornell, I know exactly what your ex's mistake was.
The Ithaca model (proposed by Carl Sagan, a Cornell astro professor) has the Sun and inner planets in the center of the town (The Ithaca Commons), and yes, like someone else said, Pluto is in fact located in the area.
The marker in Hawaii is actually Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our solar system (at 4 light-years distance). Most people would simply pass by this monument, but Sagan, in all his genius, realized that for the thousands of Ithaca residents and Cornell/Ithaca College student who go to Hawaii, after having travelled thousands of miles, at least a few would really put into perspective how small we really are in the universe (I know it's a definate stop for me when I visit Hawaii eventually).
Sagan often wrote in this area. His "sequel" to his classic Cosmos was Pale Blue Dot. The name of that book is derived from a photograph of Voyager 2, way past Neptune, taking a photo of the solar system (again, this was Sagan's idea). Earth appears as a few blue pixels. Sagan would brilliantly describe to his readers (and students) such scales of the universe to us, and then write about how meaningless our bloodshed over a few miles of land or gold can be. It really put it into perspective. Get his books. Half.com has Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot for a few bucks each.
He's truly missed.
A Solar System Scale Model Meta Page .
The short answer is because all of the planets accreted out of a disc-shaped dust cloud around the sun.
The long answer would take somebody with a better background in planetology than mine. Or a Google Search.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Everyone except the US uses metric so here are some quick conversions:
University of Maine Model of Solar System scale 1 - 93,000,000 (93 mil miles = 149,668,992 km)
Sun Diameter: 50 ft (15.12 m)
Mercury Diameter: 2.1 inches. 0.4 mi. from Sun (.643 km)
Venus Diameter: 5.2 inches 0.7 mile from Sun (1.13km)
Earth Diameter: 5.5 inches 1 mile from sun - (1.609km)
Moon Diameter: 1.5" 16ft from earth
Mars Diameter: 2.9 inches 1.5 miles from Sun (3.9km)
Jupiter Diameter: 61.4 inches (5 feet)
* Location: 5.3 mile from Sun (8.5km)
* Moons:
o Io (diameter 1.6 inches, 182 inches [15+ feet] from Jupiter axis)
o Europa (diameter 1.3 inches, 289 inches [24+ feet] from Jupiter axis)
o Ganymede (diameter 2.3 inches, 461 inches [38+ feet] from Jupiter axis)
o Callisto (diameter 2.1 inches, 811 inches [67+ feet] from Jupiter axis)
Saturn Diameter: 51.9 inches
* Location: (9.7 miles from Sun)(15.6 km)
* Inner Ring Diameter 63 inches
* Outer Ring Diameter 117 inches (10 feet)
* Moon Titan (diameter 2.2 inches,526 inches [43+ feet] from Saturn axis)
Uranus Diameter: 22 inches
* Location: 19.5 miles from Sun (31.4km)
Neptune Diameter: 21.3 inches
* Location: 30.6 miles from Sun (49.25km)
Pluto Diameter: 1 inch
Location: 40 miles from Sun 64.4
* Moon Charon (diameter 0.5 inch, 8.5 inches from planet axis)
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