If you look up an image of the solar system online, chances are it’s somewhat inaccurate.
Many show the earth and moon too close together, and even when the orbits are accurate, the planets are shown to be much too large. Filmmaker friends Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet decided to put a stop to that trend.
Most models are inaccurate because the solar system is so vast and spread out. Gorosh and Overstreet wanted to make an accurate model, but to do so, they needed 7 miles of open space. That sent them deep into a vast dry lake bed in the Nevada desert, carefully measuring each planet’s scale distance and driving to make the orbit.
Each planet was represented by a moving light to show its orbit. The project took a total of 36 hours, but at the end the stunning result was captured by time lapse photography. The scale model perfectly displayed how vast the solar system is, and how small earth is in comparison, which was part of the filmmakers’ main goal.
“We are in a marble floating in the middle of nothing. When you come face to face with that, it’s staggering,” said Overstreet.
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[The Atlantic] Featured image via screen grab
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