A Hop, Skip and a Looooong Jump...

At the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York is a scale model of our solar system that you can walk around in. It's called the Sagan Planet Walk and it covers about three-fourths of a mile in and near the center. Named after scientist and science popularizer Carl Sagan, it is appropriately five billionths the size of the actual solar system. The map is here. I like how the various representations of the solar system's members are just wherever they happen to be, no matter what business already occupies the spot. The asteroids, for example are located at a bank drive-thru at the inside teller line. Neptune is at the customer service desk of a grocery store.

Recently, the center added our sun's nearest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri. They maintained the one to five billion ratio, so the site chosen for the Alpha Centauri marker is...Hilo, Hawaii. So you'd probably better pack a lunch and make sure you use the restroom before you leave.