- I'm on the St. Kilda Foreshore, at the side of this,
the solar system scale model, representing the entirety
of the solar system at a one to 1 billion scale ratio.
The biggest object in the solar system
and our model is the sun.
Now it's 1.39 million kilometers across
which ends up being 1.39 meters across.
And it turns out it actually is hot to touch.
No, it's not a design feature.
It just happens to be made out of metal
and sitting in the hot itself.
Let's go and explore some planets.
(upbeat music)
So we brave the sun and start our journey
through solar system and down the St. Kilda beach.
Now this is a fantastic spot for this model.
It's both lovely to be at and attracts a lot of people.
So just 58 meters or 58 million kilometers
away from the sun is mercury, and it's tiny.
You can see already the vast differences in size
between the sun and the first planet.
And the spacing of all of the planets is also to scale
and the distance between our next stop
and the first is similar.
And the next planet is Venus, one of Earth's neighbors.
This project was built as a collaboration
between art and science and shows in a real,
tangible way the vastness of the solar system.
Well, then you can see for these smaller planets
there's not a lot of space for detail
and room for artistic flair.
And next up, this is home, this is planet earth.
And earth is the only planet that
has its moon included in the model.
And what this model really shows is the vast differences
between the size of the objects, the distances between them.
It really is called space for a reason.
Next up is a journey that humans might be taking soon.
And that brings us to our neighbor, this is Mars.
So that's the four inner planets.
From here, things get a lot farther.
So I'm gonna grab some transport and do it that way.
And visiting this model can be done as a lovely walk
or ride, or in my case, scoot.
And the model was originally installed in 2005
as a temporary exhibition.
And had such a positive response that it was made
into a permanent feature by the council.
This is Jupiter, the biggest of the planets.
And you can see a lot more of the detail
and I'm sure the artists appreciated the ability to do that.
From Jupiter, we continue our journey North
and through the beach going crowd who I can only assume
are just like me and here for the science education.
Then from here, we pass the one kilometer of mass
starting point, which represents 1 billion kilometers
from the sun.
Then we have Saturn, one of the gas giants
and probably one of the distinctive of all the planets.
So we've gone from the sun here to Saturn
and the distances get a lot farther from here.
And the designers did a great job
engaging the astronomical society, Victoria,
they got a series of facts information on each of the plugs
which is what I would read and say to the camera,
implying that you a lot more about the planets
than I actually did.
And as we get farther out, we get to Uranus.
One of the bigger planets with around 30 moons
and it's oriented differently than the other planets.
In addition to the Port Phillip council,
this project was funded by the Planet Wheeler Foundation
who are the folks behind the lonely planet guide book
company who helped turn this project
from the papier-mache original models
into these permanent displays.
Then we have Neptune, one of the distant gas giants
and kind of feels right
that it's located right near the sea.
But I know what you're really wondering.
Do they have Pluto or did they install a Pluto
and then have to take it down
when it was kicked out of the planet club?
What is the protocol for models
when science makes categorization changes?
Well, I had to make one
of the longer trips around 1.4 kilometers to find out.
Okay, I have just arrived at the final spot and it's Pluto.
And this is the cutest thing I think I've ever seen.
This is the tiny little display and look how little it is.
I reckon this might be one
of the smallest statues of anything in the world.
It is so cute and so little, and it feels right
for something which was once a planet and is no longer.
Thank you Pluto.
But it turns out that's not the end.
This model had one more surprise
going beyond the 0.24 centimeter long Pluto
to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.
Proxima Centauri is around 4.2 light years away.
That is 40 trillion kilometers.
But what they've done as part of this model
is still kept it to scale.
And you might be asking, how is that possible?
Well in reality, it would be 40,000 kilometers from here
but it turns out that's the same distance
as the circumference of the earth.
So it's in the right spot.
But to get here, you have to do a lap of the globe.
And that's the solar system.
If you enjoyed that, you can come to St. Kilda
and check it out for yourself.
If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe.
There's a lot more cool stuff coming up.
That's it from me.
(upbeat music)