
The Sweden Solar System - acangiano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Solar_System
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rsaarelm
For another fun scale-comparing trick, if you had a model of the whole visible
universe, somehow flattened into 2D, with the distance between Sol and Alpha
Centauri being around a millimeter, you should be able to fit the whole thing
on a half of the Earth's surface.

With the Sweden Solar System scale, Alpha Centauri would be around five times
the distance to the Moon out, so there's still a bit of a hurdle visualizing
how the two scales fit together.

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tjic
Earth is just shy of 8 km from the sun in this model. ...which reminds me that
we're 8 light minutes out from the sun. So the 1:20 million scale happens to
fall pretty close to a 1km:1 light minute scale!

units(1) confirms this (and groks "light minute" - huh!). 1 km : 1 lm is 1:18
million - within 10%.

To get a feel for how vast interstellar distances are, if we wanted to place
Alpha Centauri on the Swedish solar system map, we'd have to put it 5x further
from Sweden than the moon - at this insane scale, interstellar distances still
require interplanetary distances!

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duck
This was in today's "Now I Know" newsletter (<http://dlewis.net/nik/>) which
is run by Dan Lewis who is on HN. Highly recommend it for great finds like
this.

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DanLivesHere
Thanks for the mention :) I publish an issue daily. It's a passion (and
sometimes a headache)... so much neat stuff out there, need a way to share it.
Glad to have other HN ppl reading :)

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arkitaip
I am Swedish and had no idea. Truly TIL!

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yesbabyyes
Me too, from Stockholm and I see Globen every day, and I had no idea about
this. Cool!

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cpach
I didn't even know Globen was the world's largest hemispherical building :)

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Eurofooty
I live just down the road from Globen. My kid is gonna like this.

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rospaya
Zagreb, Croatia has the same thing. Most people just notice the sun, but I
took my time and found all of them.

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Zagreb_solar_system

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Splines
wikipedia link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Views>

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aaronsw
There's a nice one around Boston (much smaller, obviously, but might be more
accessible for HN readers): <http://www.mos.org/sln/wtu/css.html>

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JacobAldridge
Very impressive - Wikipedia also has a good page listing other examples around
the world, including instructions on how to build your own (presumably, over a
slightly smaller distance) - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system_model>

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rudepeklo
One of them is my home city, Hradec Kralove. It's a very nice walk, makes one
to realize the vast distances in space. The Swedish one is much cooler though
:)

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husted
Very nice, I had no idea. There's a similar solar system where I grew up[1],
scale is 1:1 billion. Easier to walk but not as impressive as the one in
Sweden.

[1] <http://www.planetstien.dk/Planetarypath.htm>

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twsted
There's a similar solar system where I grew up, too. Scale is 1:1.

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lysium
Very impressive. Not only are the distances in proportion, but also the sizes
and the sizes to the distances.

Didn't know this was possible.

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techiferous
I wonder if they slowly move the bodies that have elliptical orbits.

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alienreborn
Finnish Solar Model <http://www.ursa.fi/ursa/aurinkokuntamalli/eng/>

I visited all the inner planets recently by biking around the city.

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temptemptemp13
This is one of those things people are going to talk about in 3000 years.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Correlation_Theory>

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oiuyuiopiuy
Lots of books about 'were the ancient swedes aliens' - who came to earth in a
flat pack spaceship?

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markszcz
"the world's largest permanent scale model of the solar system. " Right, last
I heard our continents move. Yes this wont change tomorrow or any time soon,
but its still not permanent. Not so long ago (whats 250 million years in
respect to the universe) all the continents where connected:
<http://www.newgeology.us/Pangea.png>

I'm not trolling, its just not permanent. Anyway I love that Pluto is there.
It will always be a plant to me even though it was dropped from our solar
system.

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englishVoodoo
Continents move but Sweden is pretty far from the edges, making the whole
installment pretty set, tectonic plate wise.

Still not permanent with your definition though, as we all eventually will
stop existing.

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markszcz
My friend I think you missed a great HN article: 2045: The Year Man Becomes
Immortal (<http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=2201469>) I think if someone
really wanted to, they could witness this phenomenon. =)

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invisiblefunnel
Sagan Planet Walk in Ithaca, NY: <http://www.sciencenter.org/saganpw/map.asp>

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unicornporn
The sun is located a couple of kilometers from my home. Another planet about
20 meters from my workspace and I've only known about it since a month back
when a guy from London told me about it. It's well hidden, right in front of
our eyes.

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civilian
And Zurich! Made for an awesome hike. But we never made it to Pluto.
<http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/visiting-zrich/>

