De Systematis Solaris

Neptune group doing a puppet show.

This past week, we had our planetary presentations for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Overall, the presentations were informative and filled with unique characteristics about each planet. The Mercury group did a news broadcast (the weather part was funny),  Venus did a game show called The Galactic Games (Spock on), Earth did a spinnoff of Family Feud (Survey Says), Mars did a jeopardy game with their host Marvin the Martian,  and Jupiter did a dating game were the lord of the planets is also the lord of the ladies! Saturn did a spin off of Jerry Springer (smh) called Wednesdays with Jeff (I couldn't stop laughing), Uranus did a nice video with awesome music and narration, and finally Neptune did a puppet show of "The Bachelorette" (tell me more!). The two groups that remain (presentations on Monday) are Pluto and Solar Debris. Can't wait to see those!

Sunset - Oct 9, 2013.

After both days of presentations, we did the Solar System Event. This would be my 12th time going through this event, and I should say that it never fails to amaze me how massive the universe in which we live in is, and how small and insignificant I feel on my drive back home after those nights. We go about our day without putting much thought into what our place in space is, but once we start thinking about it, we realize that there seems to be much bigger and important things in this universe than what most people here on Earth occupy their time with.

At SOL on Wed, Oct 9, 2013

It was nice when we were able to see how SOL looked liked from each stop of the terrestrial planets,  but once we got to Jupiter (and no longer were able to see SOL because of the buildings in between us), we were still able to maintain a perspective because we all have good imaginations. To recap, Mercury was 58 steps from SOL, Venus was 108, Earth was 150, and Mars was 245. Jupiter was half a mile at M building, Saturn would end up at Orchard Lake Rd, Uranus at Middle Belt, Neptune at Inkster, and Pluto at Franklin.

At Mercury on our scale model. Monday Oct 7, 2013

At Mars on our scale model. Monday, Oct 7, 2013

We don't think of this much, but the size of the Sun's disk in our sky is smaller than what we perceive, and yet this planet is at the right distance away with the right conditions for life to exist on it. 

Size of the Sun to our scale model from Earth.

Size of the Sun's disk in our sky from Earth.
Picture taken on Sept 30, 2013 in Northville, MI.
NOTE: NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN. EVER!

Walking to Jupiter - Oct 7, 2013

It's all good up until we realize how far away the closest star to our Sun is. What's more intriguing is to know that we barely scratched the surface in terms of how far we have traveled. Voyager 1 on our scale model is 12.5 miles away from SOL on Farmington Rd. That would put it at Main Street in Royal Oak! If you remember, the closest star was a trip from Farmington Rd heading East, all the way around the world and ending up in Las Vegas after traveling ~25,000 miles (Really it would be the border between Oregon and Idaho if we continue on the same latitude, but that's boring so we decided Las Vegas would be cooler).

Neptune being perturbed at M-Building. Monday, Oct 7, 2013

On our scale model, Voyager 1 is traveling at 7 cm per hour (or 0.4 miles per year!). At this rate, it would take ~60,000 years to reach the closest star! [Marc check my math!]  So the fastest thing we built is 1,500 times slower than a cosmic snail. We have a long ways to go, but at least we are on our way and are reaching out.

Bottom line, we are tiny! Earth is merely a small little ripple in space and time, and we are but an insignificant species that exists on this little speckle of dust. Despite our insignificance, I take solace in the fact that, after all - and in the famous words of Carl Sagan, we are a way for the universe to know itself.