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.

Comments

1:15 million? Feh

[bluestar]

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.

Re:Great for distance comparison, but thats it!

[n0mad6]

I agree, but in that sense, having a model that really gives you the sense of scale that the solar system is provides for a great educational tool. Hearing the number 93 million miles (150 million km) doesn't really instill a sense of scale since we on Earth don't really have things we can relate that kind of distance to.

Of course, on the scale of this model, the closest star (other than the Sun) to us, Proxima Centurai, would be located four times the distance to the Moon.

Re:Great for distance comparison, but thats it!

[pholower]

What really fumes me about this project is that it will have the planets as artistic inspirations. I want to see how big the damn red storm on Jupiter is, of course, I guess they wouldn't be that acurate. But hell, at least make it as acurate, not an art exhibit.

Making useful scale models

[logpoacher]

Completely agree with you - it cannot possibly create a good sense of scale (especially for children) because few people have a national sense of scale - it's just hours on a motorway. I remember how surprised one of my friends was, on doing a cross UK cycle ride (Lands End to John O'Groats), and realizing that the Scottish border was pretty close to the half-way point.

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:

• Sun (Sol) 140 mm -
• Mercury: 0.5 mm 6m
• Venus: 1.2 mm 10m
• Earth: 1.3 mm 15m
• (Moon: 0.3 mm 0.04m from Earth)
• Mars: 0.7 mm 23m
• Jupiter: 14.3 mm 78m
• Saturn: 12.1 mm 142m
• Uranus: 5.1 mm 287m
• Neptune: 5.0 mm 450m
• Pluto: 0.2 mm 591m
• AlphaC-A: 167 mm 4,200 km
• Sirius: 249 mm 8,600 km
• Betelgeuse: 37 m 427,200 km
• Milky Way: 100,000,000 km

(Sorry about the crap formatting - I couldn't get this through the /. lameness filter without losing tabulation.)

And 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.