Note: At 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, NASA will be having a "major" press conference about Mars. All they have said is that it’s news from the Mars Global Surveyor, the probe with which they recently lost communication. The news is about something MGS found, and the rumor mill is grinding away. I know nothing more about this and wouldn’t break the embargo even if I did know. 
I’ll post after the conference. Until then, here’s an almost totally different topic.
I got an email from a friend the other day reminded me of something I did recently.
A couple of years ago, The Little Astronomer’s teacher asked if I could come in and give a talk to her 3rd grade class. I freaked about it, because I’m not used to talking to little kids. I emailed a friend who works at a museum and asked what she usually did, and she recommended I make a scale model of the solar system using a 100 foot rope.
Brilliant!
I put together a brief slide show of the planets, and prepared the rope. In the class, I gave them a tour of the solar system, then brought the kids outside. Once there, I got two kids each to volunteer to be a planet: one to hold the rope at the proper distance, and the other to hold a printout of a picture of the planet.
This worked fabulously. The inner four planets were pretty crowded, but after that things get space out (har har). Pluto is so far away that they really got to see and feel how big the solar system is, and why it takes so long for rockets to get to the planets.
My demo was a variation on a theme; it’s been done before. These kinds of scale models are terrific for kids: they’re fun, and anything hands-on is a lot better for the wee ones (and for the big kids like me, too, for that matter).
But back to my original thought here, the friend who emailed me was telling me about a scale model of the solar system on the Washington DC Mall. It looks pretty cool, and gives weary tourists a place to rest a moment between museums and yet still learn something.
It turns out the exhibit can be purchased for your local community. It ain’t cheap: at $160,000 a pop, you may need to get some donors for it. The product is the brainchild of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, which I think is a non-profit (they are sponsored by another umbrella organization).
Here’s how they describe the exhibit:
The Voyage exhibition is a one to 10-billion scale model of the Solar System stretching 2,000 feet (600 meters), and containing ten 8.5 -foot high aluminum stanchions locating the Sun and nine planets, and three smaller stanchions that provide entry points to the exhibition, and address asteroids and comets.
2000 feet, yet the scale is 1 to 10,000,000,000. Wow. The solar system really is big! And I bet a lot of people have the sore feet to prove it.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
My favorite model like this is on the UC Boulder campus. I followed it after discovering Jupiter there (a concrete base with a bronze plaque). Finding Pluto took a nice, long walk.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
uhhh, they should update that plaque to say “the sun and eight planets”. I think they could install a few more stanchions for the dwarf planets. If not, then maybe they could save approximately 18,000 dollars off each sale of the exhibit by leaving Pluto out.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Wow, that’s kind of expensive. I could make a scale model a lot cheaper than that. A friend of mine did that for a science project in high school, he basically went around town leaving markers. The sun was at city hall, and Pluto was something like ten miles away. He then drew it all up on a map. Pretty neat project. His models were all to scale (to each other, no to the distances), too.
btw, your link isn’t working.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:16 am
For 27 years I was a supervisor at Hyde Memorial Observatory and took school kids through during the day. I’d set up a model solar system (including Pluto) using what I called an Astronaut Year (AY). It took the astronauts about 3 days to reach the moon. An AY thus was the distance it would cover at that average speed in a year. Turns out to be almost exactly one third of an AU. So I rounded to that figure. Then I’d set up a scale of the solar system using one step (adjusted in size for the age of the class) using a geocentric coordinate system. That way if you stood at the earth the sun’s model would be 3 steps away with the real sun directly overhead. If it was a groupd so the sun had set but still light enough to see to run around the park the observatory is in then Venus or Jupiter etc. would also be above their model as seen from the earth. We’d then go on a walking tour of the solar system starting with the sun and working out. Since the planets (and dwarf planet) were at their correct relative positions that was a lot of walking. We’d end up crossing the model several times as we visited each planet in turn. Gave them a good feeling for how big it really is without it being all in a line as most models are. With older groups we’d get into the problem of sending a space ship to Mars with Mars with it moving half way around the sun before the rocket got there and then the earth not being where they left it. I found most kids thought of traveling to planets like going to the shopping mall. Neither moved and the way home was just retracing your steps. This broke through that misconception. If it was rainy or dark so we had to work inside then I used one inch for an AY. They had to imagine most planets to size unfortunately. Models on that scale were mostly too small to see. One other advantage of the outdoor model is the kids would count the steps and realize either the rockets had to go a lot faster or they’d be awfully old by the time they reached the outer planets. Also it ran off a lot of energy so they could sit inside for the multimedia show without being too restless after being cooped up on the bus getting to us. Many came from hours away so were ready to run. This gave them a good excuse and a way to learn at the same time.
Only problem I had was sometimes a person walking their dog would bring in Jupiter or Saturn thinking I’d dropped it and I’d have to reset everything before the bus arrived. Gave me my exercise as well. As I had to run the solar sytem three times including setting it up and removing it afterwards. I used bricks to hold down the models incase it was windy so a weighty exercise as well.
Rick
December 6th, 2006 at 12:26 am
I’m reminded of the model of the universe Carl Sagan had in the Cosmos series, with a series of squares, each representing a different order of magnitude of time and space. Fantastic looking thing.
A model which was languishing in the dark somewhere (according to Demon Haunted World)…
December 6th, 2006 at 12:37 am
Along Rt.1 in Northern Maine there’s a scale model about 40 miles long. It’s pretty impressive to see how small the planets are when they’re put into correct scale.
I have the feeling that most people drive by and only notice the gas giants and have no idea what they are.
Some pictures can be seen here:
http://www.umpi.maine.edu/info/nmms/solar/
December 6th, 2006 at 2:47 am
When I grew up there was a forest walk about the solar system. At scaled distances there would be a small information board about the planet with pictures etc. When you got to the end of the walk there was a playground where they had big steel balls with handles so you could “feel” what 1 kg would weigh on the other planets… It was right next to the radio telescopes in Westerbork, The Netherlands… Wonder if it is still there…
December 6th, 2006 at 5:06 am
In Utrecht (the Netherlands) where I did my undergraduate degree there is a permanent model of the solar system with the sun as a large bronze sphere in front of the central university building, and Pluto all the way out in the suburbs. (Not sure if they are gogn to remove that.)
December 6th, 2006 at 5:35 am
My wife asked me to speak to her third-grade class for two consecutive years while we were dating. I made a sort of “Solar System ruler” out of 18-inch lengths of oaktag with the edges taped together; the kids would unfold the thing and see where the orbits of the planets had been drawn in over its 150-foot length.
I’d also do a little exercise in the classroom with their 12-inch globe and a paper model of the Moon I had to scale (roughly the size of a tennis ball). Starting near the surface, I’d slowly back away and ask the kids how far the Moon *should* be on that scale. Most were screaming for me to stop after only a foot, but the actual scale distance is *thirty feet* — clear across the classroom!
(I’d then like to point out that Alan Shepard’s flight, on that scale, is only about an eighth of an inch off the Earth’s surface… and that was *all* the manned spaceflight experience we had when Kennedy urged Congress for money to go to the Moon within a decade!)
The local planetarium in Concord, NH also has a “Solar System walk” with tiny planets encased in transparent plastic eggs. You take the planets with you on your walk; there are posts at the location of each planet. You have to ask for the planets at the front desk. There’s accompanying literature that also explains how far away the closest stars would be on this scale, but I can’t remember the figures off the top of my head.
My wife made an excellent point to the kids that really seemed to get them to wrap their heads around how empty it all is: It’s called “space”, not “place chock-full of planets and stars and stuff just outside of Earth”.
December 6th, 2006 at 5:39 am
$160,000! I gotta get into the solar system scale model business!
When I was younger, I tried drawing it out on my bedroom wall. It didn’t fit.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:14 am
On scale model of solar systems I’ve seen where on TV, on ‘Bill Nye’.
But I get the idea of the vast size of the solar system.
He took it a bit further one episode, condensing the system (including Pluto, as Eris was unknown at the time) to an indoor soccer field.
The point was to show how far one goes to the nearest star; it was 6 hours worth of driving away.
“2000 feet, yet the scale is 1 to 10,000,000,000. Wow. The solar system really is big! And I bet a lot of people have the sore feet to prove it. ”
Sore feet after a 2000 foot walk?
Peanuts to me, Phil. I regularly walked that distance on an aircraft carrier I served on.
Hmmm, that would be neat; scale the solar system to the size of the flight deck of a carrier. Probably not much smaller than the 2000 foot scale.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:16 am
I loaded the Solar System data into a spreadsheet that let me change the scale proportion, then made models of the major planets from Play-Doh to scale. I enlisted my daughter’s Girl Scout troop to hold the planets at the correct distance. The Sun was a 150 watt lightbulb about four inches in diameter, and the Earth was .020″ in diameter. Jupiter was 3/8″ diameter, and about 400 feet away (this was a LONG time ago, I’m working from memory!)
I’d love to see one of those models set up along Solidarity Drive from the Addled Planetarium to the Field Museum.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:28 am
Oooh, shiny…
I get a badge! There’s a bit of chagrin involved in being nominated for one of these Weblog Awards, since if you look at the finalists in “Best Blog”, you’ll see Malkin, LGF, Power Line, InstaPundit, and The Corner……
December 6th, 2006 at 6:31 am
I like the one at the Boston Museum of Science. Well - “at” needs to be used a bit liberally here. The Sun is a 3.5m sphere at the Hayden Planetarium, the scale is 1-to-400 Million, and Pluto is out in Newton Connecticut.
http://www.mos.org/sln/wtu/css.html
JC
December 6th, 2006 at 6:38 am
BA,
This photo is obviously a hoax. Look at the shadows. They are not parallel.
Seriously, the Houston Museum of Natural Science has a similar exhibit at its entrance.
December 6th, 2006 at 7:08 am
They have a scale model of the solar system at the University of Colorado, starting near the planetarium (with a road in place of the asteroid belt), and Pluto on the northern edge of campus, near the football stadium.
/used to eat lunch on a bench near Jupiter.
December 6th, 2006 at 8:42 am
There’s one on the corridor wall in the Physics building at Newcastle University, with the plaques at different heights to represent the maximum displacement above/below the ecliptic. IIRC Pluto is represented by a sign saying it’s 80 feet that-a-way and ten feet down…
December 6th, 2006 at 8:52 am
JackC - that’s Newton, Massachusetts, not Newton CT. But you knew that
December 6th, 2006 at 8:52 am
The best scale is 1 inch to 1 Astronomical Unit. There are 63,360 inches in a mile, and 63,368 AU in a Light Year (approx), so if you have a 2 inch disc to represent the Earth’s orbit, then Alpha Centauri will be just over 4 miles away. If you walk it, it’ll give you an excellent feel for the scale of the Galaxy, which on this scale would stretch a third of the way to the Moon.
December 6th, 2006 at 9:29 am
“Best Scale” depends on what you want to convey. For grasping the distance between stars, you may be right, but for visualizing the size of the Solar System and the Planets within it, that scale is pretty useless.
I tried to set up a SS walk once. Difficult to size planets making photos from web sources, and trying to find a linear stretch long enough near my location. After all that, no one showed up.
jrkeller, the only problem with the Houston Museum of Natural Science exhibit is that the planets are on a different scale to each other than the distance between each other. If not careful, that detail can be overlooked. I really like the idea of a scale model showing both on the same scale, however impractical it gets.
December 6th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Good to see you still count Pluto as part of out solar system.
December 6th, 2006 at 10:57 am
what about this mars press conference that nasa was to hold? i haven’t seen anything about it.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:11 am
It hasn’t happened yet — well, it’s just starting, I guess. It’s for 1 PM EST; Phil is using some obscure time zone.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Irishman Says: “I tried to set up a SS walk once. Difficult to size planets making photos from web sources, and trying to find a linear stretch long enough near my location.”
Exactly. Here in Livermore, we are lucky enough to have a semi-rural city park with a mostly linear walkway over 3 miles (5 Km) long. I’ve been working with the parks district to put a 1:billion scale SS along it. That’s a nice round number and it’s pretty straightforward with that size pathway. The project is doubly significant since the local astronomy club holds public star parties in this park.
The sun is a sphere about 4 feet (1,2 meters) diameter at one end of the path and the planets’ orbits are marked where they cross. A post with an info plaque and a scale model of the planet is placed on its orbit. The Earth is only 1/2 inch (1 cm) diameter on that scale. Pluto (yes, we’d keep it, along with Eris and any other large KBO’s as they are discovered) is only 0.8 inches (2mm)!
- Jack
PS - I had no idea there were so many “SS walks” around. I thought I was so original [sigh].
December 6th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I would love to see a solar system scale model in my community, but it would be quite difficult I think to persuade them to fund such a project.
December 6th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Ithaca has a really nice one.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:05 am
I am a runner and had an idea I would love to find a couple of clubs to do sometime. Get together a running club and an astronomy club and host a 5k (or 10K) planet run. You could make a scale model of the solar system and run from the Sun to Neptune/Pluto (depending on your opinion of the IAU
What do you think?
Rob
December 7th, 2006 at 8:47 am
Keppel Croft Gardens in Ontario has a great hand-made solar system model (http://www.steveirvine.com/solar.html). It’s about 400m long, based around a 12.2cm Sun.
As an extra bonus, they’ve teamed up with a garden on Vancouver Island to include Proxima Centauri to scale distance (3,125km).
They also have an analemmatic sundial and a henge they’ve built in the same field. All the details are at http://www.steveirvine.com/henge.html
December 7th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Wait, there are nine planets now? When did that change?
December 8th, 2006 at 11:22 am
When discussing how really hugh the solar system is, I like to think in terms of how long it took humanity, from the discovery of agriculture, which allowed us to grow our popluation from the dynamic balance in effect for a hundred thoudand years of about 20 million to our present population of 6.5 billion(an increase of about 333 times) in 10,000 years. Compare that to the length of time it would take to fill the solar system, which has at least 3000 planet earths worth of resources available in the form of moons, asteroids and comets(dosn’t account for large planatary bodies) if our growth rates were comparable to previous rates of 3.5 % per year. My calculator doesn’t have that many digits, but it could take 30,000,000 years to fill it up. That’s a BIG place to play around in. I wonder how different our descendants could be, with that much time to grow???
GAry 7