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Maine Completes Largest To-Scale Solar System Model

Posted by timothy on from the can't-get-theayah-from-heayah dept.

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."

5 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Ithica's is bigger by spooje · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to date this girl from Ithaca when I discovered their scale solar system. On their monuments they say the marker for Pluto is in Oahu, Hawaii. Seems to me that would be slightly larger than Maine's model.

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  2. When is the Model by The_Spide · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Presumably because the model is static it is a
    snapshot of the planets orbits at particular
    date (with a repeating interval).

    Has someone predicted when the planets will be
    next be the same as the model?

  3. They have a big globe in Maine too by tiltowait · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maine also has the world's largest Revolving/Rotating Globe, 41 feet in diameter, at the DeLorme map company office. They make the state atlases that are based on topo maps (good for camping and stuff).

  4. Shows why "to scale" isn't always best. by Forge · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The most obvius problem with building this scall model seams to be that the Sun isn't actualy a Ball.

    Seriusly. I think other "partialy to scale" modelsarebetter for the simple reason that if you get the reletive sizes of all the planets right but ignore the actual distance betwean them you enable people to look over the whole thing.

    As is it looks like they streached the scale large enogh so someone won't literaly poket mercury andthus ended up with acrane to lift saturn and a sun that isn't all there.

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  5. My Scale Model by nrlightfoot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A few years back I made an aproximate scale model of the solar system to liven up a run, using the scale 1mm for 1000km. It ended up being around 3.5 miles long. Running along along it gives a good impression of how big and empty space really is. If you ever get the chance, check out one of the scale models. They really make you feel quite small.

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