Models of 18 objects from the solar system will be placed in different locations across the UK in proportion to the distances between their orbits. No, their size will not be proportional - the Sun, the Earth, Jupiter and Pluto - each of them is exactly one meter in diameter
Avi Blizovsky
The sun is over 1.39 million km wide but if it were the size of a washing machine, Pluto would be 4.2 km away and the size of a pinhead.
It is difficult to grasp the small space of the solar system - that is why the SpacedOut project was established in the UK, which is designed to bring the dimensions of the solar system to the dimensions of the Earth, or rather of the UK. The project opened with the opening of the National Science Week.
The sculptures, representing various space objects, will stretch from the Shetland Islands in the north to Cornwall in the south. "The model includes models of the sun, the planets, the comet Ellie and some asteroids," said project manager Nigel Marshall. Icy bodies such as centaurs orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Saturn and Neptune and the trans-Neptunian objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune are also included.
The project is also supported by a dedicated website that may become a unique and valuable national resource for astronomy and space science in the future," added Dr. Marshall.
Not exactly a hotel
On a scale of 1 to 15 million, the distance between the Earth and the Sun can be reduced to about 10 kilometers. And a world because the sun will be stationed at the radio observatory in Jordal Bank, Cheshire, where the 76-meter-diameter Levell telescope is located - Pluto. The distances are so great it's hard to imagine, I think the idea is brilliant, said Ian Morrison, the observatory's director of operations.
"We are proud that Jortal Bank was chosen as the center of the solar system. On the same scale, by the way, Proxima Centauri, the nearest Saturn star will be 7 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth. However, the founders did not do one thing - they did not demonstrate the differences between the sun and the planets as well as between the planets themselves. All models will be one meter in diameter. "If we were to make these models on the same scale as we put the distances, the diameter of the Sun would be 100 meters while Pluto would be the size of a hotel, said John Thompson, an educational adviser to Pruitt. "The project combines art, science and technology. The models are sculptures made by artists. For example, the model of the sun is not a yellow ball with dots on it, but rather an impression of Hamann, said Dr. Marshall.
Most of the models will be placed in schools, others in visitor centers such as the National Space Center in Leicester and the Armagh Planetarium in Northern Ireland. The model was designed so that Uranus would be displayed in Bath where William Herschel lived when he discovered the planet in 1781. Nine sites have been open since March 2005, another nine will open in less than a year. The remaining ones are essential for visualizing all the bodies in the solar system. The models were made according to the recommendations of school students and thus the model of the sun was built according to the ideas of elementary school students in Oldham.
