6 ms·

Sweden Solar System

158 points by titaniumtown 3y ago

petepete 3y ago
I do find it frustrating on Wikipedia that when you click on the map to enlarge it the markers vanish. I understand why, but the hyperlink should be to a bigger map viewer, not the bare underlying image.
- pestatije 3y ago
  yeah, thats definitely a bug in the specs
- formerly_proven 3y ago
  I dunno why but WP detests interactive features for some reason and the few that do exist are disabled in the mobile view (e.g. collapsible sections). Another example: all those tables where measurements are spelled out twice, in metric and imperial, wasting a huge amount of screen space and making everything harder to read instead of having a "[mm] [in]" switch once per table or page.
jholzer 3y ago
Very cool to see TNOs on this. I never appreciated how far away Sedna is, TIL it's not even close to the Kuiper belt!
mongol 3y ago
Interesting to see Oumuamua there. But it was my understanding that it was just briefly visiting our solar system and will leave us behind? https://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/oumuamua/ https://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/oumuamua/
- Giorgi 3y ago
  Yes, but whole system looks like it is designed as a tourist attraction anyways.
mongol 3y ago
The sun is represented by the spherical Avicii Arena, which used to be the largest spherical building in the world. That is, until Las Vegas' Sphere was built. Now the United States have the opportunity to create an even larger solar system model!
- petersumskas 3y ago
  The Las Vegas sphere is pretty large. I’m not sure how it compares to the dome at Siding Springs but in sure that would be a very large scale model. https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/country-nsw/warrumbungle-area/coonabarabran/attractions/worlds-largest-virtual-solar-system-drive https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/country-nsw/warrumbung...
Findecanor 3y ago
I live close by "Earth" and "Mars". "Earth" is one of the few pieces made to depict its planet somewhat accurately, with the continents correct and the moon at the correct distance and (almost) correct size. Unfortunately the Natural History museum it is in is closed for renovation so you can't go there at the moment. Most of the other pieces, are more art than science. "Mars" looks more like an old-fashioned soccer ball than the planet, IMHO.
- jenadine 3y ago
  Is it a coincidence that the scaled earth's path crosses the Natural History museum?
  - robin_reala 3y ago
    Presumably: the Museum was built in 1916, and the Globe in 1989.
    - adonovan 3y ago
      That’s evidence that it is _not_ a coincidence.
sakjur 3y ago
Walking from Globen (the sun) to Naturhistoriska (the earth) could be made into a quite nice 10 km walk, with possible detours to see much of the old worker's town of Södermalm, the old town, the city center around Klara/Norrmalm, the urban residential area Sibirien, the university and finally ending up at the science museum Naturhistoriska. The Stockholm novels by Per Anders Fogelström starting with "City of My Dreams" largely plays out across that walk, if you're interested in the 19th/20th century evolution of the city and its working class. The metro's art project is also pretty cool if you take the subway when you're in Stockholm, with unique artwork at each station (spanning from a few pieces almost hidden away next to the ad billboards to the whole station decorated to an elaborate theme).
patrickwalton 3y ago
This is so cool! I've wanted to make something like this for years. I did the math for using Spaceport America as the sun and Pluto would have been as far as Wyoming.
aetherson 3y ago
I've been interested in scale models of the solar system (or other astronomical systems like say the moon system of Jupiter) for a while, partly to try to teach my kids stuff and partly just because I think they're cool. My opinion is that this solar system model is too big to be useful. If you're trying to teach people about the scales of space, I think you need something humanly navigable, ideally something where you can see with a single sight-line back to the previous object in the model, or, failing that, where at least you can walk between elements of the model in a short enough time that you can kind of keep yourself on-task and thinking about the model for the whole walk.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I dunno... Earth is 4.7 mi from the sun. That's walkable. I like that this actually gives you a sense of real meaningful distance and size. This is a sun that's still big compared to humans, and a distance to the earth that isn't negligible. And then a real lesson about how insanely larger the solar system is when you try to get out to Jupiter and beyond.
  - aetherson 3y ago
    It's walkable, but you can't see the "sun" from the "earth," and it's walkable in well more than an hour, at which point I don't think that you're really keeping the scale in mind. We can always look at images or whatever if we want to get an intellectual sense of the scale of things. I think the advantage of a model is that you feel immersed in it, and I don't think you do at this scale. It's challenging! It's hard to find a location and a scale which gives you this human sense of the sizes involved. At most scales, you have to make the planets pinpricks in size. But, especially for the inner system, you can make it work. EDIT: Here's I think something that works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg
  - RetroTechie 3y ago
    For a better perspective on scale, they should do a model where in 1 place you have the sun, its planets, asteroid belts etc, and (to scale!) in a 2nd place you have a model representing the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri). Oh... and of course put in where Voyager, Pioneer & New Horizons probes are these days - after 40+ years of travel at ~15km/s.
simonjgreen 3y ago
I’m actually quite surprised there isn’t a Tom Scott video about this! I half expected the link to take me to his final video and this be the title.
crazygringo 3y ago
Seems like there could/should be one for New York -- it could use the spherical Hayden Planetarium [1] as the sun. Which would be a conveniently somewhat smaller scale. (To be fair, it does already have scale models of the planets right next to it, just not at scale distances [2].) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Center_for_Earth_and_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Center_for_Earth_and_Spac... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amnh_fg09.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amnh_fg09.jpg
- anatnom 3y ago
  At scale distances from the 27m sphere planetarium (as the sun), earth would be a 24 cm sphere at distance of 2.8 km. From looking at a map, this could be a basketball somewhere a few blocks NNE of Times Square. (Pluto, however, would be 114km away. Dunno where that would be. Maybe Allentown, PA?)
VikingCoder 3y ago
Is the Vegas Sphere the largest hemispherical object?
- mongol 3y ago
  Yes it is. The sun in this model used to be.
sponaugle 3y ago
There is a smaller scale version of this on the CU campus: https://www.colorado.edu/fiske/colorado-scale-model-solar-system https://www.colorado.edu/fiske/colorado-scale-model-solar-sy... It is 1:10 Billion, so about a half-mile from the Sun top Pluto.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Eugene, Oregon has one as well: https://eugenesciencecenter.org/exhibits/eugene-solar-system-trail/ https://eugenesciencecenter.org/exhibits/eugene-solar-system...
deadbabe 3y ago
I’d love to do a road trip visiting all these planets! When is a good time?
- daneel_w 3y ago
  Any. We still have four seasons, sort of, so come on over and enjoy either while you still can.
  - tuwtuwtuwtuw 3y ago
    Wouldn't recommend roadtrip in December unless you like driving in darkness. The most northern part of this solar system is in kiruna, where next sunrise is 2nd of January and that day sun will be upp less than 30 minutes.
    - daneel_w 3y ago
      An experience on its own, setting it apart from what's offered through the usual "tourist traps".
sph 3y ago
If my calculations are correct, at that scale of 1:20,000,000 the closest star Proxima Centauri is ~2 million km away, or 5.22 times the distance to the Moon. Space is fucking huge.
beAbU 3y ago
Is this scale model accurate to relative sizes of the bodies, or only distance? That's something I've not been able to find out.
- Gare 3y ago
  Both, that's the whole point of these models. Also size compared to the distance is true to scale.
- dmurray 3y ago
  Both, but they cheated a bit on the Sun. Per TFA: > To respect the scale, the globe represents the Sun including its corona. That's not really a meaningful measurement as the corona could extend anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million kilometres. If the Avicii Arena represented a more normal measurement of the sun, the rest of the planets should be ~50% greater in diameter and ~50% further dispersed. Sweden would still have room!
workfromspace 3y ago
There is a smaller version in Zagreb as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Views https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Views I was there this summer. It was a fun event trying to find them all.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  One more in Zurich: https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/planet-trail https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/planet-trail
  - LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
    Hagen (in Westfalen) in Germany says Hi: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetenmodell_Hagen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetenmodell_Hagen Unfortunately only available in German. Could be combined with a visit to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen_Open-air_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen_Open-air_Museum , or the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Heritage_Trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Heritage_Trail in general. Or if one is into such stuff, getting https://www.vormann-brauerei.de/biere/alt_aus_dahl.htm https://www.vormann-brauerei.de/biere/alt_aus_dahl.htm (I usually don't like, or drink beer, but this one was very acceptable)
adonovan 3y ago
I showed this to my brother, who lives in Stockholm. His response: “Typical bloody Stockholmers, thinking everything revolves around them!” ;-)
dang 3y ago
Related: There’s an entire solar system hiding inside Sweden - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36687868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36687868 - July 2023 (1 comment) The Sweden Solar System (world’s largest model of our planetary system) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32944427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32944427 - Sept 2022 (3 comments) The Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26424090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26424090 - March 2021 (72 comments) Sweden Solar System Photos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181696 - Aug 2014 (2 comments) Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167192 - Aug 2014 (40 comments) The Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2220903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2220903 - Feb 2011 (26 comments)

158 points by titaniumtown 3y ago

I do find it frustrating on Wikipedia that when you click on the map to enlarge it the markers vanish. I understand why, but the hyperlink should be to a bigger map viewer, not the bare underlying image.

pestatije 3y ago
yeah, thats definitely a bug in the specs
formerly_proven 3y ago
I dunno why but WP detests interactive features for some reason and the few that do exist are disabled in the mobile view (e.g. collapsible sections). Another example: all those tables where measurements are spelled out twice, in metric and imperial, wasting a huge amount of screen space and making everything harder to read instead of having a "[mm] [in]" switch once per table or page.

jholzer 3y ago

Very cool to see TNOs on this. I never appreciated how far away Sedna is, TIL it's not even close to the Kuiper belt!

mongol 3y ago

Interesting to see Oumuamua there. But it was my understanding that it was just briefly visiting our solar system and will leave us behind? https://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/oumuamua/ https://www.swedensolarsystem.se/en/oumuamua/

Giorgi 3y ago
Yes, but whole system looks like it is designed as a tourist attraction anyways.

mongol 3y ago

The sun is represented by the spherical Avicii Arena, which used to be the largest spherical building in the world. That is, until Las Vegas' Sphere was built. Now the United States have the opportunity to create an even larger solar system model!

petersumskas 3y ago
The Las Vegas sphere is pretty large. I’m not sure how it compares to the dome at Siding Springs but in sure that would be a very large scale model. https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/country-nsw/warrumbungle-area/coonabarabran/attractions/worlds-largest-virtual-solar-system-drive https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/country-nsw/warrumbung...

Findecanor 3y ago

I live close by "Earth" and "Mars". "Earth" is one of the few pieces made to depict its planet somewhat accurately, with the continents correct and the moon at the correct distance and (almost) correct size. Unfortunately the Natural History museum it is in is closed for renovation so you can't go there at the moment. Most of the other pieces, are more art than science. "Mars" looks more like an old-fashioned soccer ball than the planet, IMHO.

jenadine 3y ago
Is it a coincidence that the scaled earth's path crosses the Natural History museum?
- robin_reala 3y ago
  Presumably: the Museum was built in 1916, and the Globe in 1989.
  - adonovan 3y ago
    That’s evidence that it is _not_ a coincidence.

sakjur 3y ago

Walking from Globen (the sun) to Naturhistoriska (the earth) could be made into a quite nice 10 km walk, with possible detours to see much of the old worker's town of Södermalm, the old town, the city center around Klara/Norrmalm, the urban residential area Sibirien, the university and finally ending up at the science museum Naturhistoriska. The Stockholm novels by Per Anders Fogelström starting with "City of My Dreams" largely plays out across that walk, if you're interested in the 19th/20th century evolution of the city and its working class. The metro's art project is also pretty cool if you take the subway when you're in Stockholm, with unique artwork at each station (spanning from a few pieces almost hidden away next to the ad billboards to the whole station decorated to an elaborate theme).

patrickwalton 3y ago

This is so cool! I've wanted to make something like this for years. I did the math for using Spaceport America as the sun and Pluto would have been as far as Wyoming.

aetherson 3y ago

I've been interested in scale models of the solar system (or other astronomical systems like say the moon system of Jupiter) for a while, partly to try to teach my kids stuff and partly just because I think they're cool. My opinion is that this solar system model is too big to be useful. If you're trying to teach people about the scales of space, I think you need something humanly navigable, ideally something where you can see with a single sight-line back to the previous object in the model, or, failing that, where at least you can walk between elements of the model in a short enough time that you can kind of keep yourself on-task and thinking about the model for the whole walk.

crazygringo 3y ago
I dunno... Earth is 4.7 mi from the sun. That's walkable. I like that this actually gives you a sense of real meaningful distance and size. This is a sun that's still big compared to humans, and a distance to the earth that isn't negligible. And then a real lesson about how insanely larger the solar system is when you try to get out to Jupiter and beyond.
- aetherson 3y ago
  It's walkable, but you can't see the "sun" from the "earth," and it's walkable in well more than an hour, at which point I don't think that you're really keeping the scale in mind. We can always look at images or whatever if we want to get an intellectual sense of the scale of things. I think the advantage of a model is that you feel immersed in it, and I don't think you do at this scale. It's challenging! It's hard to find a location and a scale which gives you this human sense of the sizes involved. At most scales, you have to make the planets pinpricks in size. But, especially for the inner system, you can make it work. EDIT: Here's I think something that works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3Igc3Rhfg
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  For a better perspective on scale, they should do a model where in 1 place you have the sun, its planets, asteroid belts etc, and (to scale!) in a 2nd place you have a model representing the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri). Oh... and of course put in where Voyager, Pioneer & New Horizons probes are these days - after 40+ years of travel at ~15km/s.

simonjgreen 3y ago

I’m actually quite surprised there isn’t a Tom Scott video about this! I half expected the link to take me to his final video and this be the title.

crazygringo 3y ago

Seems like there could/should be one for New York -- it could use the spherical Hayden Planetarium [1] as the sun. Which would be a conveniently somewhat smaller scale. (To be fair, it does already have scale models of the planets right next to it, just not at scale distances [2].) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Center_for_Earth_and_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Center_for_Earth_and_Spac... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amnh_fg09.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amnh_fg09.jpg

anatnom 3y ago
At scale distances from the 27m sphere planetarium (as the sun), earth would be a 24 cm sphere at distance of 2.8 km. From looking at a map, this could be a basketball somewhere a few blocks NNE of Times Square. (Pluto, however, would be 114km away. Dunno where that would be. Maybe Allentown, PA?)

VikingCoder 3y ago

Is the Vegas Sphere the largest hemispherical object?

mongol 3y ago
Yes it is. The sun in this model used to be.

sponaugle 3y ago

There is a smaller scale version of this on the CU campus: https://www.colorado.edu/fiske/colorado-scale-model-solar-system https://www.colorado.edu/fiske/colorado-scale-model-solar-sy... It is 1:10 Billion, so about a half-mile from the Sun top Pluto.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
Eugene, Oregon has one as well: https://eugenesciencecenter.org/exhibits/eugene-solar-system-trail/ https://eugenesciencecenter.org/exhibits/eugene-solar-system...

deadbabe 3y ago

I’d love to do a road trip visiting all these planets! When is a good time?

daneel_w 3y ago
Any. We still have four seasons, sort of, so come on over and enjoy either while you still can.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 3y ago
  Wouldn't recommend roadtrip in December unless you like driving in darkness. The most northern part of this solar system is in kiruna, where next sunrise is 2nd of January and that day sun will be upp less than 30 minutes.
  - daneel_w 3y ago
    An experience on its own, setting it apart from what's offered through the usual "tourist traps".

sph 3y ago

If my calculations are correct, at that scale of 1:20,000,000 the closest star Proxima Centauri is ~2 million km away, or 5.22 times the distance to the Moon. Space is fucking huge.

beAbU 3y ago

Is this scale model accurate to relative sizes of the bodies, or only distance? That's something I've not been able to find out.

Gare 3y ago
Both, that's the whole point of these models. Also size compared to the distance is true to scale.
dmurray 3y ago
Both, but they cheated a bit on the Sun. Per TFA: > To respect the scale, the globe represents the Sun including its corona. That's not really a meaningful measurement as the corona could extend anywhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million kilometres. If the Avicii Arena represented a more normal measurement of the sun, the rest of the planets should be ~50% greater in diameter and ~50% further dispersed. Sweden would still have room!

workfromspace 3y ago

There is a smaller version in Zagreb as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Views https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Views I was there this summer. It was a fun event trying to find them all.

resolutebat 3y ago
One more in Zurich: https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/planet-trail https://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/planet-trail
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  Hagen (in Westfalen) in Germany says Hi: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetenmodell_Hagen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetenmodell_Hagen Unfortunately only available in German. Could be combined with a visit to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen_Open-air_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen_Open-air_Museum , or the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Heritage_Trail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Heritage_Trail in general. Or if one is into such stuff, getting https://www.vormann-brauerei.de/biere/alt_aus_dahl.htm https://www.vormann-brauerei.de/biere/alt_aus_dahl.htm (I usually don't like, or drink beer, but this one was very acceptable)

adonovan 3y ago

I showed this to my brother, who lives in Stockholm. His response: “Typical bloody Stockholmers, thinking everything revolves around them!” ;-)

dang 3y ago

Related: There’s an entire solar system hiding inside Sweden - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36687868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36687868 - July 2023 (1 comment) The Sweden Solar System (world’s largest model of our planetary system) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32944427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32944427 - Sept 2022 (3 comments) The Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26424090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26424090 - March 2021 (72 comments) Sweden Solar System Photos - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181696 - Aug 2014 (2 comments) Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167192 - Aug 2014 (40 comments) The Sweden Solar System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2220903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2220903 - Feb 2011 (26 comments)