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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."
We're in the largest to scale model of the solar system.
Given that the solar system isn't all in the same plane, it'd be quite a trick to make a three-dimensional model stay on the Earth's surface (even ignoring curvature). Or are they not tracing out orbits, but instead picking a point on the orbits where the planets happen to be collinear?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
...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
I hear some of the hottest models are located there, too.
...that it will be using this new scale model to test launch paths for future probes to other planets. A NASA engineering demonstrated by spreading out his arms and making airplane noises while running towards Mars.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
When they're done, they'll be mighty proud of themselves, so they'll light up a big BBQ at the center of the model, where the sun should be, and they'll grill models of invading alien motherships in the form of hamburger patties.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Guess they are going to have to change the heading on their website.
Bradley's Solar System
"That Earth is located at Percy's Auto Sales (1.0 mile from Sun)..."
(Percy's must have pretty damn good air-conditioning)..
Pursuit of science [somehow].
I remember back in my day we were simply told the solar system is huge. We didn't need a realistic to scale model to figure that out.
Maybe kids today have no imagination...
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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.
can beat this if we all get together.
I'm in Michigan -- I'll hang a basketball ("Jupiter") outside of my house.
Now, we need someone in New York state to be "Saturn", and someone in Minnesota to be "Mars".
Who's with me?
Uranus, will be set in place on the 13th
I don't recall agreeing to participate.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
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.
Education
Edification
Realization
Wonder
Until you heard about this, did you have any real sense of the size and scale of our solar system?
How about the rest of Slashdot?
How about for those building this thing?
How about for those who visit this thing?
Imagine how tedious it is to walk from the earth to Mars, and then scale that to interplanetary scales, not even taking into account periphelion and aphelion, and gravity slingshots and lagrange tubes.
I mean, are you going to similarly argue that museums that only display known things is worthless?
GPL Deconstructed
make a moving model, it's yet another grand exercise in scale conversations, road trips and beer :).
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
One more thing to add to my scale model of the state of Maine.
Well, if you look at the picture mentioned with the guys in the back of the pickup, it is to be hoped that neptune is not being situated too far from the ecliptic.
After all, have you noticed the dirty-great big power lines just above them??
Also, if this is to scale, exactly how big are real solar power-lines?
Its late, I'm drunk, I should put my sense of humor to sleep......
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
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.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
the curvature of the surface of earth is greater than that of space.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
"Why? Sure, I could make a 40 mile scale model of the solar system, but I have to ask, why?:
Beat's pickin' potatoes and you have to pay for the Coffee Brandy up here. Takes your mind off the mosquitos?
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
If someone ever wants to build a 40-mile radius solar system that has room to orbit the planets, many Texans could loan out their back yards.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
it would be really funny to paint your car up like a big rock and drive it at 7 mph (651,000,000 mph in scale) to simulate an asteroid collision at near light speed.
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?
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).
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.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
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.
A small black monolith has been spotted in the vicinity of the Jupiter model.
Researchers at the University of Maine had no comment.
Couldn't these people do something more productive with their time?
:)
You mean, they're idiots for building a scientific and educational piece of art, and you're NOT wasting your time by surfing the web on Saturday evening?
11 Fun and Exciting Things To Do In Maine:
1) Eat $5.00 lobster right off the boat
2) Go camping, fishing, etc., without undertaking a major operation or spending hundreds of dollars
3) Swat mosquitoes
4) Swat blackflies
5) Laugh at tourists
6) Go down to Dunkin Donuts, listen to voluble roommate talk at someone for 5 minutes, get 2-syllable reply: "Ayyuh"
7) Go to Moody's Diner, eat walnut pie. Try to remember entire dialogue to Tim Sample's "Baked bean special at Moody's Diner" routine.
8) Go up north, see moose. They're really, really big.
9) Complain about the crayfish logo on the license plates.
10) Make obscene snow sculptures
11) Ah, that first day of spring!
5 Unique Entertaining Features of the University of Maine:
1) North America's largest scale model of the solar system
2) A really ugly hockey arena (Orono camous)
3) Free education for Passamaquody, Micmac and Penobscot Indians
4) Entertainingly eccentric professors (this may not be unique)
5) Has a Sea Grant campus
All right, so these are not the most exciting or leading-edge things you could think of. So what. Maine is a place for people who don't need the more sophisticated features of, say, California. I lived there for about 9 years, and loved it, even the winters (at least the first 5 or 6 months of them).
As for the model, I completely disagree. This is a really cool idea. The planet models are large enough to see and get a feel for, and the fact that they stretch out over 40 miles along Route 1 points out just how far apart everything is. You'd have to be pretty unromantic not to like this. Imagine being a kid and coming across this and being turned on by it and becoming a scientist because of it. That's what it's all about.
Here in Petaluma, CA, someone recently made a planetary model by drawing the planets on the sidewalk with magic markers over a 6 or 7 block distance. It's not really to scale - each planet is a couple inches in diameter - but it's fun to walk downtown following it (it starts right by my house). I wouldn't mind having something like this, hanging from the phone poles, though.
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
And it takes you 15 minutes, then you are walking .5C
at a scale speed of
If you run it in 8 minutes, then you would be exceeding the (scale) speed of light.
Driving from the sun the Pluto in 1 hour would
be an scale speed of 5C (Warp Factor 1.6?)
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
A Solar System Scale Model Meta Page .
Living in Maine and actually working for the University of Maine system, I can guarantee that at least one of the planets will be knocked down via 12 gauge by the end of the week.
This article from Smithsonian Magazine describes the Maine Solar System Model and the guy who put it all together, with a budget of $0. Everything from labor to the land to house the planets on was donated.
Think we can hire him to manage some Open Source projects for us? <grin>
Someone you trust is one of us.
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.
what sig?
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)
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Now I can take my dog and pretend it is "Space Gamora" coming to destroy the earth since everything is in scale now...