Model Of The Solar System Covers Seven Miles Of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert
It doesn’t take decades of research to know that the universe is a big place; when the average town has borders that vanish on the horizons, it’s a given that people understand the sense of scale at work. Even so, there are likely inquiring minds that want to have a better idea of scale than the stuff of maps and diagrams. Those inquiring minds will be happy to know that their wish has been granted.
Filmmaker Wylie Overstreet rallied several of friends for a trip to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Their intent: to use a dried-out lakebed to craft a model of the solar system, and give an idea of just how massive one section of the universe could be. For the record, the scale they used translated one astronomical unit — roughly the distance from Earth to the sun, or 93 million miles — to about 577 feet. That put the Jupiter model more than a quarter of a mile away — and ultimately left the crew using a space that extends for seven miles.
Notably, it’s not just the distance between planets that they kept to scale. The planets themselves were also represented as accurately as possible — which meant that Earth was the size of a marble, but the sun had a diameter of nearly five feet. No one forced Overstreet and company to undertake such a massive project, but the end result is plenty appreciable.
