Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh, in order to educate you on just how big our solar system really is, decided to put it all in perspective for you. Using a marble as the starting point for Earth, and using 176 meters as 1 AU (1 AU is about the distance from the Earth to the Sun, or 149,597,871 kilometers, or about 93 million miles), Overstreet and Gorosh laid out, over a vast swath of the Nevada desert, a scale model of the entire solar system, tracing all the planets’ orbits in the sand.
Check Out: Bill Nye on Sailing Spacecraft
The following (beautiful) video illustrates the construction of this rather daunting project, but most certainly captures the vastness of space in the way no simple chart or list of numbers can. We recommend that you watch the below video (originally posted on Vimeo), drink a strong cup of tea or a flavorful cocktail, and meditate on the infinity of the cosmos.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
