Scale Model Of Solar System Seeks To Show Just How Vast It Is

It's hard for most of us to grasp just how vast the universe and our own solar system actually are. It took days for Apollo astronauts to reach the moon and that is our closest neighbor in the solar system. A duo named Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh has teamed up to try to show people just how vast the solar system is.

To do this the two went out to a dry lake in Nevada and created a scale model of the solar system with a single astronomical unit equaling 176 meters. An astronomical unit (AU) is the distance from the sun to Earth. Using that measurement, they then laid out all the outer planets using the same scale.

The team then used a time-lapse video to record the scale model at night while they drove around the orbits of the planets at night with lights to show the actual orbits in scale. A seven-minute film shows the entire project.

It's incredible just how vast the solar system is and the video does help illustrate that fact very well. It's really cool to see the orbits of the planets and the video is definitely worth seven minutes of your morning.

SOURCE: Wired