Guys build amazing 7-mile-long model of the solar system, to scale
Starting with an Earth the size of a marble, these folks built a full-scale model of our solar system across 7 miles of Nevada desert.
The Earth is frequently referred to as a big blue marble, so it's fitting that a couple of guys used an actual marble to represent the Earth in an amazing 7-mile-long (11-kilometer) full-scale model of the solar system built in the Nevada desert.
Filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh built the solar system in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno. Over the course of 36 hours, Overstreet, Gorosh and a couple of friends created the solar system using a conversion of 1 AU (astronomical unit -- or the approximate mean distance from the center of the sun to the center of the Earth) to 579 feet (or 176 meters).
From there, the team placed the planets at their relative distance from the sun, and traced each planet's orbit around the sun in a dry lakebed using their cars. They hooked the planets up to lights, and at night they went to the top of a nearby mountain to capture video of the lit planets as they completed their orbits.
The result is a 7-minute-long time-lapse video, "To Scale: The Solar System," that is beautiful to watch and gives a great sense of just how huge our solar system really is. You can see that video above, and to get a sense of what went into bringing this creation to life, watch the behind-the-scenes video on Vimeo.
(Via Sploid)