The Sun
Pluto, 984 metres away
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Otford and the Solar System Model: A Description by Geoff King
Promising to lead a rambling club walk to cover
millions of miles is not an everyday opportunity, but
that is what Otford Parish Council provided for all
visitors when they built the Millennium model of the
Solar System.
This scale model is set within the playing field
alongside the village car park. At the very centre
of the model sits a shining silver orb 10" in diameter
representing the sun. Our walk starts at this
point and in 32 metres (Sorry, 88 million miles), the
Earth is reached, a mere blob 2.79mm in diameter (See
drawing below) set atop a plinth also showing the moon,
a minute pinpoint just an inch or so from Earth.
All the other planets are scattered at the same scale at
points in the playing field and surrounding area – some
are a mile or so away.
Standing in space, so to speak, one asks if any
member would care to guess how far the nearest stars are
to be found at the same scale to the model sun?
Would it be, say, in nearby Sevenoaks two miles away?
Or perhaps even further, say in London twenty miles
away? The awesome truth is that another orb, (about 10"
in diameter) representing Proxima Centaur, is sitting in
the Griffith Observatory, 5000 miles away in Los Angeles
and the next nearest star Sirius, is sitting in the
Sidney Observatory, Australia, 11,000 miles away!
When awestruck members looked down on Mother Earth,
this blob, no bigger than a small ball bearing isolated
in the vastness of space, they were asked to contemplate
that if they were to walk ten miles once a week for
fifty years, they would just about circumnavigate the
blob, all 2.79mm of it!
To visit the Otford model is a profound and thought
provocative experience, combined with a ramble on the
lovely nearby hills is indeed a memorable event.
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