Just to have an idea how sparse space is, the closest star at this scale would be about 5x the (actual) distance to the moon.
Sweden Solar System
31–40 of 43 posts
Re: Sweden Solar System
#32Boston has one as well: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Guide-g60745-i3496-Boston_Massach...
not to scale :)
Re: Sweden Solar System
#33I shouldn't laugh, I really shouldn't... "Uranus (2.6 m in diameter) was vandalized"
If it's in Gävle, it would be a logical guess that it was vandalized due to the local population's decades-long tradition of vandalizing monuments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4vle_goat
Destroyed 27 times in 48 years. That makes the recreation seem like a bad idea.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#34Munich has one, too with a much smaller scale, with the sun central at the technology museum 'Deutsches Museum'
Re: Sweden Solar System
#35That's great, I'm going to Stockholm in November so I'll check out Mercury. Thanks for sharing.
It'd be even better if there was an international solar system which involved several countries, to make it an even larger scale.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#36Solar Systems in scale are really impressive. We usually see them in books, where all the planets are close. The amount of space is astonishing. I saw one in Brazil in a Astronomy Museum http://www.mast.br/, the Sun is smaller than a golf ball and you have to walk dozens of meters to get to Uranus. The nearest star would be in a city more than a thousand kilometers away. This is what I call a humbling experience.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#37There's one in Denmark as well, although much smaller (1: 1 billion). One thing that I thought was really cool when I visited was that if you stood by the fake earth an looked at the fake sun it appeared precisely the same size as the real sun. Also very cool to walk for a couple of hours and reaching tiny Pluto. http://www.planetstien.dk/Planetarypath.htm
That should be the case for any model that is to scale. The moon and all planets should be real-sized (in steradians), too.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's in Gävle, it would be a logical guess that it was vandalized due to the local population's decades-long tradition of vandalizing monuments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A4vle_goat
Destroyed 27 times in 48 years. That makes the recreation seem like a bad idea.
It's an absolutely fantastic idea, best publicity that town gets all year. The whole country is engaged in the burning of that thing.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#39Not on the same sort of scale at all, but York (UK) has a scale model along one of the Sustrans cycling routes: http://www.york.ac.uk/solar/
SkyRide do free regular guided public rides down the route (or sometimes a subset there of for people who don't feel up to the full length and back) which is a pleasant way to spend an hour or two if you are in the area.
Re: Sweden Solar System
#40The Smithsonian Institute (Washington DC, USA) has a walking model along the capital mall.
Our local (Boise, ID) Discovery Center has a model, too. Fun stuff!