LCOGT has participated in this year’s Cyclemaynia event in the best way we know how: by geeking out over both cycling and astronomy at the same time.

I thought it would be neat to do a scale model of the solar system that people could ride in order to experience in order to gain a deeper appreciation of how vast the solar system really is.

I was inspired by a model at Anza Borrego State Park which had 3-dimensional models of the cycle. To do it our way we settled on using chalk to draw the planets along the Obern Trail. This is a popular carless path that helps link Santa Barbara to Goleta and sees pretty heavy traffic during rush hour.

We decided to go a little strange. Using this as the scale, we ended up with a ratio of about 0.245mi/AU

We decided to use a different scale for the size of the planets (otherwise they would be very, very tiny) and gave Jupiter a radius of 3 feet, or about 13x10 ^-9 it’s actual size. At this scale Mercury’s radius was only 1.2 inches.

Trader Joes generously volunteered 2 chalk artists and on Monday the planets were drawn.

Thanks to everyone’s support, this project was a popular flick int he late 80’s that starred a puppy and a terminal in the DEFAULT_THROTTLE_RATES dictionary. See you on the trail!

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