Solar System Model
Solar System models, especially mechanical models, called orreries, that illustrate the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System have been built for centuries. While they often showed relative sizes, these models were usually not built to scale. The enormous ratio of interplanetary distances to planetary diameters makes constructing a scale model of the Solar System a challenging task. As one example of the difficulty, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is almost 12 000 times the diameter of the Earth.
If the smaller planets are to be easily visible to the naked eye, large outdoor spaces are generally necessary, as is some means for highlighting objects that might otherwise not be noticed from a distance. The objects in such models do not move. Traditional orreries often did move and some used clockworks to make the relative speeds of objects accurate. These can be thought of as being correctly scaled in time instead of distance.
One 1:6 300 000 000 scale model, designed to be easily replicated, is called The Thousand-Yard Model and spans about a kilometre. In it, the Earth is represented by a peppercorn. A school class building this model might tape the peppercorn to an index card to make it more visible. Another scale model is the 1:10 000 000 000 model, in which 100 000 km is represented by 1 cm. In this model, the Sun is 600m from the Kuiper belt and dwarf planet Pluto. The largest scale model in the world is the Sweden Solar System.
In July 2005 the Austrian art group monochrom placed the planets true to scale (sun, 4 meters in diameter at Machine Gallery, Alvarado Street, near Echo Park) throughout the Los Angeles cityscape. Then they conducted an 'illegal space car race' through the Solar System.
In regional Australia, in the area surrounding Coonabarabran (Australia's Astronomy Capital) there is a model Solar System that reaches from the Observatory (The Sun) to surrounding towns and localities.
In the US, a precedent-setting model Solar System project the Voyage National Program began with installation of Voyage on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in front of the Smithsonian museums. It is a 1:10 000 000 000 scale model approved by the US Commission of Fine Arts and National Capital Planning Commission. It was designed for replication and permanent installation in communities across the nation. It was also designed as a center-piece for sustained community-wide science education, embracing a "Learning Community Model" of programming for students, teachers, families, and the public. Grade K-12 lessons available for download enhance the exhibition experience. Voyage is now permanently installed in Kansas City, Houston, and Corpus Christi. It is approved for installation in Des Moines, Orlando, and Baltimore, and a dozen other sites are exploring it as a site feature in their community. For the International Year of Astronomy 2009, Voyage has now become available worldwide as "the Voyage International Program" with storyboard translation into any language. The Voyage National Program also has a Facebook page with photoalbums for all the Voyage communities.
In 2009, to celebrate International Year of Astronomy, the Scottish Solar System project created an approximate scale model of the Solar System, with correctly scaled objects representing the major planets sited temporarily, for Autumn Moonwatch week (Oct 24th - Nov 1st 2009) at the locations of a number of Scottish amateur astronomy groups and societies. In this model the Sun was represented by the main building of Glasgow Science Centre. The Scottish Solar System project was coordinated by Dr Martin Hendry, astronomer at the University of Glasgow, and Glasgow Science Centre. Although the model did not include Pluto (which on the same scale would be located roughly in the Faroe Islands), its scale of 1:8 200 000 was smaller than any other model listed in the table below. On the same scale the nearest star beyond the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, would still lie nearly 5 million km from Glasgow Science Centre.
Read more about Solar System Model: Scale Models in Various Locations, A Model Based On A Classroom Globe, A Model Based On A Sports Field, A Model For Primary School Children, Misleading Models
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