
Two Nevada filmmakers chose a dry lakebed with miles of empty space to create a scaled model of our solar system, revealing just how wrong most models actually are.
It was a common science fair project for students of varying ages, but these two men have taken the scale model of the solar system to the next level. According to a report from the Washington Post, Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh took to the Nevada desert to demonstrate how far apart the planets actually are.
The model also shows the relative sizes of the planets as they are in the actual solar system. They used a model of Earth the size of a small marble, and left over seven miles of empty space to represent the distance to the next planet.
As the two constructed their model, they filmed the process. After placing Saturn and glancing back miles over the dry lakebed to the starting point, the sun, remarking how tiny the project made them feel.
Perturbed by the lack of true-scale images available depicting the solar system, Overstreet wanted to show people just how tiny and far away the planets are from each other. “The only way to see a scale model of the solar system is to build one,” Overstreet said.
Equipped with a meter-wide sun, marble-sized Earth and other planets, a camera, and a car for traveling the distance between each planet, the video shows just how vast our own cosmic backyard really is.
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