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Worlds Largest Scale Model Solar System?
Richard_at_work writes "As the BBC is reporting, the UK is to attempt to create the worlds largest scale model of the solar system ever attempted. At a scale of 1:15million, this brings the distance between the Sun (positioned in Cheshire at the Jodrell Bank Telescope site) and the Earth to 15km or 10 miles, although you will need to travel the entire length of the UK to visit all of the planets. Interesting to note is the distinct lack of a 10th planet :) As well as the 9 planets and the sun, also shown on the model will be Halleys Comet and several asteroids. Would have been great if they had included probes such as Voyager 1." Maybe this claimant for world's largest solar system model will have to expand to keep up.
This is a fantastic idea for a realistic idea of how great the distances are from planet to planet, and from earth to the sun, but that is about the only thing I can see this being used for. I see this as an over-rated tourist attraction more than anything.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
I just finished building a full scale model. I centered it on the sun instead of England though. It took a long time to position Sedna, which is why you're only recently seeing it in the news.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
That's because Pluto is a Disney fabrication and doesn't really exist, it was all a big PR stunt to try to bring him up to Mickey's level.
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
they have one along the smithsonian museums
it's the length of the mall, each one has a to scale model of the astral body, and a indicator how many feet to the left or right you must go to the next body.. it's very unreal to realize that if the eart were the size of 'this dot' then the sun is 5 blocks thattaway..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Would have been great if they had included probes such as Voyager 1.
A 1:15million scale model of the ~4m-wide Voyager 1 probe would measure ~250 nanometers.
Also the BBC says:
The scale of 1 to 15 million reduces the distance between the Earth and the Sun to about 16km (10 miles).
150,000,000 km / 15,000,000 = 10 km, not 16 km.
Actually, Uranus is to be placed in Bath, the city where its discoverer William Herschel lived when he spotted the planet in 1781. Coincidentally, its less than 5 miles from where I am typing this.
There's an old legend about a Mapmaker, who was the finest mapmaker in his entire country. His maps were the most accurate, detailed, and well-documented maps available in the entire country; possibly the entire world.
One day, the King came to the Mapmaker, and requested a new map of the country, that would be more accurate than any map that had ever been made. And so, the Mapmaker made a map of the entire country that included every house, every road, and every lake. The map was so big, he had to store it in a barn.
The King was so delighted that he commissioned another map of the country, which was to be even more accurate. And so, the Mapmaker made a new map which was even more accurate, and included ever room and piece of furniture in the country, every foot path, and every well. The map was so big, he had to had to store the map in the fields behind the castle, and it had to be moved periodically so that the grass wouldn't die underneath.
The King was so thrilled with the new map, that he commissioned yet another map from the Mapmaker. It was to be the greatest map ever made. And so, the Mapmaker made another map, the best map ever made. The Mapmaker included every nail, every rock, every blade of grass, and every puddle in the entire country. When he was finished, he presented the map to the King, and there was a very big ceremony, for they had to unroll the map so the King could look at it. You see, the map was so detailed, that it was as big as the entire country! And when they unrolled the map, it blocked out the sun and stars in all the land.
Moral of the story: A map with a scale of 1:1 isn't of much use. Maps are usefull to the extent that they can compress information, are transportable, and are abstractions of reality.
I will be visiting the UK again and will tie one on at the local pub (yet again) and be the FIRST MAN TO BE ARRESTED FOR PISSING IN PUBLIC ON MARS !
The world's current largest solar system model is located in Sweden, scale 1:20 million.
You can also boldly go where no man has gone before from the comfort of your own home and your chair, and the vicinity of your refridgerator and assorted beverages, with Celestia, a real-time 3D space simulator.
I do not moderate.
Actually, Uranus is to be placed in Bath
Which is just the way I like it.
I made a scale model of the solar system for my kids in the field out the back. You need 600m of field. Here are the scales, shrinking by a factor of 1e11 (so 100km -> 1mm), giving diameter and distance from sun:
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Sun (Sol) 140 mm -
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Mercury: 0.5 mm 6m
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Venus: 1.2 mm 10m
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Earth: 1.3 mm 15m
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(Moon: 0.3 mm 0.04m from Earth)
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Mars: 0.7 mm 23m
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Jupiter: 14.3 mm 78m
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Saturn: 12.1 mm 142m
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Uranus: 5.1 mm 287m
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Neptune: 5.0 mm 450m
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Pluto: 0.2 mm 591m
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AlphaC-A: 167 mm 4,200 km
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Sirius: 249 mm 8,600 km
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Betelgeuse: 37 m 427,200 km
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Milky Way: 100,000,000 km
(Sorry about the crap formatting - I couldn't get this through theAnd it's fantastic!! You make the planets out of blu-tac or dough. It's great making the tiny ones - you're making a sphere 0.2mm across! - you roll out a thin hair of material and cut it with a knife. Jupiter's about the width of my thumb. You put little rings on the ringed planets. And you use a balloon for the Sun. Then you pace out the positions, and place them on the path, with a little marker so you can see where they are. Combine this with a good play with Celestia, and you're talking about some pretty scarily educational stuff. Celestia's fantastic, but the exponential speed control (though totally necessary) means that you can't get a perspective on size and distance.
Then you reveal (from UK) that the nearest star is in New York! (actually, that's a bit far, Cairo is a better match), and Sirius (which they know) is in San Francisco...
And look at Betelgeuse! - it's HUGE! - twice the size of our house - and it's about where the moon is. And the Milky Way ... well, it all gets abstract again. But it's interesting to stand at Pluto, look towards the Sun, close your eyes a bit, and imagine that you're on the edge of an empty ball with the Sun at the centre. And then turn around, and there's nothing else before America... just emptiness....
Pretty good.
And what's weird is that so few people have any sense of scale here - my wife figured that Alpha Centauri would be in a town a few km away.
I guess that this big model they're making is a PR stunt - it raises awareness, and gets people to play with things like Celestia. After all, they seem to be trying to create a memorable impression and a sense of distributed ownership ("We own Jupiter") rather than actually draw the big picture.