Around the Solar System in an afternoon

« The pavilion where Uranus lives. »

A few weeks ago, Janne "Butt Ugly" Jalkanen mentioned a scale model of the Solar System in Helsinki which I hadn't ever heard about. I am, apparently, not alone in this as just about everyone I asked about it hadn't ever heard of it either, expat and native alike, which was rather surprising since it has been around since 1992. Jarkko found the Ursa Aurinkokunnan Malli website for me and I was fascinated by such magnificent nerd porn only a few kilometers away. :) After some prodding, he translated the directions for me and I rode the bus up to Pajamäki one afternoon with a map and my camera. Perhaps I'm just an easily entertained nerd, but this is the coolest thing since the MIT dome was adorned with a complete police car.

You can bicycle or walk around the model as a car tends to be rather cumbersome since the planets are situated in some out of the way places. The model was especially well placed for a long walk in the woods and around a few islands. Take a picnic and a big bottle of bug repellant. The Ursa pages frequently mention the visibility of the model of the Sun from the other planets but, maybe I'm getting old and going blind, unless you have x-ray vision or a pocket telescope it seems to be a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

Since I decided to make an English version of the pages, I also took the liberty to breathe a little love into the HTML and pictures since they've likely been the same for a decade. It's difficult to sex-up pictures of bits of metal atop grey concrete pillars, but I made an attempt anyway. The information guides have a really nice bicycling map with the locations of the planets, but I included one that I made since their map isn't available on-line. I moved the pages into XHTML 1.0 and kept much of the original design while bringing it into W3C compliance and added a few links and the navbar on the left. Jarkko did much of the translation, but I gave up torturing him and translated most of the guidemap texts at the bottom of the pages. I've got a tarball of it all which I'd like to offer to the Ursa folks if they're interested.

• The Scale Model of the Solar System
• A few extra photos and the rest in A Walk Around the Solar System

It seems a pity that such a neat installation should go so unnoticed, even when in plain view. I'd like to help replace Pluto and maybe get a day set aside during the dark months before the snow arrives where we can get dressed up as comets and ride around the model on our bikes, ending up at the Sun. The possibilities with day-glo, glo-sticks and battery powered lights could really make for a fun event. :) Bring back Pluto!

n.b. - Check out this scale solar system model in Maine with the nicely done planets and the "Spaced Out" plan for a scale model in the UK which would include Halley's Comet. Thanks Paul! :) And yet another one in Boston! How did I manage to miss that?!