Sweden Solar System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Swift-Tuttle
Halley
Earth, Eros, Saltis, Mars,
Sun, Mercury, Venus
Saturn, 5025 PL
    Jupiter
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto and Charon
Ixion
Eris
Sedna
Terminal Shock
The Sweden Solar System

The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, the largest hemispherical building in the world. The inner planets can also be found in Stockholm but the outer planets are situated northward in other cities along the Baltic Sea. It was started by Nils Brenning and Gösta Gahm.[1] It is in the scale of 1:20 million.[2]

The system

The bodies represented in this model include the Sun, the planets (and some of their satellites), dwarf planets and many types of small bodies (comets, asteroids, trans-Neptunians, etc.), as well as some abstract concepts (like the Termination Shock zone). Because of the existence of many small bodies in the real Solar System, the model can always be further increased.

The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe (Globen), Stockholm, which is the largest hemispherical building in the world, 110 m in diameter. To respect the scale, the globe represents the Sun including its corona.

Inner planets

  • Mercury (25 cm in diameter) is placed at Stockholm City Museum, 2,900 m from the Globe. The small metallic sphere was built by the artist Peter Varhelyi.
  • Venus (62 cm in diameter) is placed at KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), 5,500 m from the Globe. The model, made by the United States artist Daniel Oberti, was inaugurated June 8, 2004, during a Venus transit. The model fell and shattered around June 11, 2011. Due to construction work at the location of the model of Venus it has been removed and as of October 2012 cannot be seen. There is another model of Venus located at the Observatory Museum.
  • Earth (65 cm in diameter) is located at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Cosmonova), 7,600 m from the Globe. Satellite images of the Earth are exhibited beside the Globe. An elaborate model of the Moon (18 cm in diameter) is on display in another part of the museum.
  • Mars (35 cm in diameter) is located at Mörby Centrum, a shopping centre in Danderyd, a suburb of Stockholm. It is 11.6 km from the Globe. The model, made in copper by the Finnish artist Heikki Haapanen is connected by an "umbilical cord" to a steel plate on the floor having an Earth image.[3] The globe also features marks that represent some typical Martian chemical elements.

Outer planets

  • Jupiter (7.3 m in diameter) is placed at the roundabout near Sky City, in Stockholm Arlanda Airport in Sigtuna Municipality, 40 km from the Globe. Made as a flower decoration, with different flowers representing different zones of the giant gas planet; however, there are plans to build a 3D model.
  • Saturn (6.1 m in diameter) is placed outside the old observatory of Anders Celsius, in the so-called Celsius Square, at centre of Uppsala, 73 km from the Globe. Inaugurated during the International Year of Astronomy,[4] the model is a mat with a picture of Saturn, but will eventually grow to crown a school planetarium at the city. In addition, several schools in Uppsala are to provide moons of Saturn: the first completed was Enceladus (diameter 2.5 cm) at Kvarngärdesskolan.[5]
  • Uranus (2.6 m in diameter) was vandalized and the new model is planned to some place in Gävle, 143 km from the Globe.
  • Neptune (2.5 m in diameter) is located by the river Söderhamnsån in Söderhamn, a coast town with tradition in fishing and sailing (which relates to Neptune as the deity of the seas). Placed 229 km from the Globe, the model is made of acrylic and, at night, shines with a blue light.

Dwarf planets

  • Pluto (12 cm in diameter) and its moon Charon are placed near the southern of the Dellen lakes, in Delsbo, 300 km from the Globe. The lakes are thought to be formed by a meteorite impact 90 million years ago. The two bodies' sculptures are supported by two gravelike pillars (as Pluto is the deity for death), made up with dellenite, a rare mineral formed at that place by the meteorite impact.
  • Ixion (6.5 cm in diameter), the dwarf planet candidate, is located at Technichus, a science center in Härnösand. 360 km from the Globe. The sculpture is an orb held by a hand with the arm. This plutino was discovered by a team which included scientists from Uppsala.
  • Eris (13 cm in diameter) is located at Umestans Företagspark, Umeå, 510 km from the Globe. Made by Theresa Berg, the golden model tells the mythical story about how the goddess started a quarrel between other Greek deities, starting with an apple where it's written καλλίστῃ ("to the most beautiful one").
  • Sedna (10 cm in diameter), another dwarf planet candidate, is located at Teknikens Hus, a science center in Luleå, 912 km from the Globe.

Other bodies

  • the Near Earth Object Eros is located at Mörbyskolan, a school in Danderyd Municipality (where Mars is located), 11 km from the Globe. It was created as a Valentine's Day project in gold, modeled after Eros, the god of love. The dimensions are 2 × 0.7 × 0.7 mm (0.98 mm³).
  • Proxima Centauri is the nearest known star to the Sun at 4.24 light-years distance. A model of it has been represented accurately, to scale, as part of this solar system by being placed in a museum in Victoria, Australia.
  • the asteroid Saltis is located at Saltsjöbaden's Kunskapsskola, a school near the Stockholm Observatory. The asteroid was discovered by A. Brandeker in 2000, using a telescope at that observatory; in fact, the body was named after the observatory's location, Saltsjöbaden.
  • the asteroid Palomar-Leiden (0.2 mm in diameter) is located in a park in Alsike, Knivsta Municipality, 60 km from the Globe. It's not a sculpture but a dot on a map of the System, placed in front of Erik Ståhl's monumental cosmic sculptures.
  • Halley's Comet is located at Balthazar Science Center, in Skövde. Inaugurated at December 16, 2009, there are actually four models of the comet: three placed outdoor, based on school children's drawings, plus one indoor, consisting of laser passing a block of glass.
  • Comet Swift-Tuttle is placed at Kreativum, a science center in Karlshamn. This comet's orbit is special, closest to the Globe in the inner Stockholm and farthest in Karlshamn, 390 km from the Globe.
  • The Terminal Shock is the edge of heliosphere, the farthest place where the solar wind goes in supersonic velocity. No sculpture currently represents the terminal shock, but a foundation for a future sculpture exists at the Institute of Space Physics, 950 km from the Globe, in Kiruna, above the Arctic Circle.

List of objects

Object Distance[6] Diameter[6] Location[6] Coordinates Inauguration date
Sun0 km71 m (233 ft) (the disk)
110 m (361 ft) (incl. the corona)		The Ericsson Globe in Stockholm 59°17′36.80″N 18°04′59.65″E / 59.2935556°N 18.0832361°E / 59.2935556; 18.0832361-
Mercury2.9 km (1.8 mi)25 cm (9.8 in)Stockholm City Museum in Stockholm59°19′11″N 18°04′14″E / 59.31972°N 18.07056°E / 59.31972; 18.070561998
Venus5.5 km (3.4 mi)62 cm (24.4 in)Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
and Observatoriemuseet in Stockholm		 59°20′51″N 18°04′21.4″E / 59.34750°N 18.072611°E / 59.34750; 18.072611June 8, 2004
Earth and Moon7.6 km (4.7 mi)65 cm (25.6 in) and 18 cm (7.1 in)Cosmonova Riksmuseet in Stockholm 59°22′08.48″N 18°03′12.34″E / 59.3690222°N 18.0534278°E / 59.3690222; 18.0534278before 2000[7]
(433) Eros11 km (6.8 mi)2.0 mm x 0.7 mm x 0.7 mmMörbyskolan, a school in Danderyd 59°23′38″N 18°02′41″E / 59.39389°N 18.04472°E / 59.39389; 18.04472
(36614) Saltis11 km (6.8 mi)< 1 mmKunskapsskolan, a school in Saltsjöbaden 59°16′21″N 18°18′17″E / 59.27250°N 18.30472°E / 59.27250; 18.30472January 14, 2010[8]
Mars11.6 km (7.2 mi)35 cm (13.8 in)Mörby Centrum in Danderyd 59°23′52.58″N 18°02′11.58″E / 59.3979389°N 18.0365500°E / 59.3979389; 18.0365500before 2000[7]
Jupiter40 km (25 mi)7.3 m (24 ft)Arlanda airport in Märsta 59°38′58.52″N 17°55′50.38″E / 59.6495889°N 17.9306611°E / 59.6495889; 17.9306611before 2000[7]
(5025) Palomar-Leiden60 km (37 mi)0.2 mmin Alsike 59°45′25″N 17°45′57″E / 59.75694°N 17.76583°E / 59.75694; 17.76583
Saturn73 km (45 mi)6.1 m (20 ft)Celsius square in Uppsala 59°51′34″N 17°38′14″E / 59.85944°N 17.63722°E / 59.85944; 17.63722June 13, 2009[4]
Uranus146 km (91 mi)2.6 m (8.5 ft)Furuviks Park in Gävle
1P/Halley comet204 km (127 mi)Balthazar Science Center in Skövde 58°23′14″N 13°51′11″E / 58.38722°N 13.85306°E / 58.38722; 13.85306 December 16, 2009[9]
Neptune229 km (142 mi)2.5 m (8.2 ft)by the river Söderhamnsån in Söderhamn 61°18′07″N 17°03′19″E / 61.30194°N 17.05528°E / 61.30194; 17.05528October 29, 1998[10]
(134340) Pluto and Charon300 km (186 mi)12 cm (4.7 in) and 6 cm (2.4 in)by the lake Dellen South, in Delsbo 61°47′52″N 16°32′58″E / 61.79778°N 16.54944°E / 61.79778; 16.54944before 2000[7]
(28978) Ixion360 km (224 mi)6.5 cm (2.6 in)Technichus, a science center in Härnösand 62°37′49″N 17°56′12″E / 62.63028°N 17.93667°E / 62.63028; 17.93667April 18, 2002[11]
109P/Swift-Tuttle comet390 km (242 mi)Kreativum, a science center in Karlshamn 56°11′39″N 14°51′09″E / 56.19417°N 14.85250°E / 56.19417; 14.85250
(136199) Eris510 km (317 mi)13 cm (5.1 in)Företagspark in Umeå 63°50′05″N 20°15′37″E / 63.83472°N 20.26028°E / 63.83472; 20.26028 December 6, 2007[12]
(90377) Sedna810 km (503 mi)10 cm (3.9 in)Teknikens Hus, a science center in Luleå 65°36′59.50″N 22°08′06.00″E / 65.6165278°N 22.1350000°E / 65.6165278; 22.1350000December 8, 2005[13]
Termination shock950 km (590 mi)A plateInstitute of Space Physics in Kiruna 67°50′27″N 20°24′34.5″E / 67.84083°N 20.409583°E / 67.84083; 20.409583

Gallery

  • The Ericsson Globe represents the sun. The rest of the Solar System is scattered in, and north of, Stockholm.

  • Mercury in Stockholm

  • Venus in Stockholm

  • Earth in Stockholm

  • Mars in Stockholm

  • Neptune in Söderhamn

  • Sedna in Luleå

  • The foundation for the sculpture of the Terminal Shock in front of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Sweden Solar System: Bakgrund" (in Swedish). Sweden Solar System. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  2. ↑ "Sweden Solar System: English summary". Sweden Solar System. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  3. ↑ Danderyds Kommun: Mars
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Press release, linked 2009-06-08.
  5. ↑ List of moons of Saturn assigned to schools in Uppsala (in Swedish).
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Sweden Solar System: Stationer" (in Swedish). Sweden Solar System. Retrieved 2009-09-15. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "Tours of Model Solar Systems". Psych.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-04. 
  8. ↑ Ny Teknik: Saltis invigs i Saltis
  9. ↑ "Sweden Solar System: Halleys komet". Ttt.astro.su.se. 2009-12-16. Retrieved 2013-10-04. 
  10. ↑ Neptunus i Söderhamn
  11. ↑ "Technichus' Exhibitions". Technichus home Page. Retrieved 2010-05-10. 
  12. ↑ Umeå kommun: Umeå får en egen himlakropp
  13. ↑ "Luleå är Sedna. I alla fall om vår sol motsvaras av Globen i Stockholm.". Norrbotten Kuriren (in swedish). Retrieved 2010-05-10. 

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