16.5M views · Sep 16, 2015 · 7:07 · 1 HN recommender · 3 mentions · discussed 2015–2025
A short film in which friends build the first true-to-scale model of the solar system, with full planetary orbits, on a Nevada dry lakebed. It conveys the real distances and sizes involved.
Why Hacker News points people here: Shared as the best visceral demonstration of solar system scale.
“a mini-documentary where people attempt to build a true-to-scale model of the Solar System”HN comment, 2025
“a mini-documentary where people attempt to build a true-to-scale model of the Solar System”
Mini-documentary building a true-to-scale solar system model.
This is a great website—it reminds me of To Scale: The Solar System [1], a mini-documentary where people attempt to build a true-to-scale model of the Solar System. It makes me feel like a tiny speck of dust, floating in the vastness of nowhere... [1] this video
“this guy built a scale model in the Black Rock Desert”
Scale model of the solar system built in the Black Rock Desert.
Also, this guy built a scale model in the Black Rock Desert: this video EDIT: This one doesn't include Pluto.
“Here's I think something that works.”
Scale model that gives a human sense of sizes.
It's walkable, but you can't see the "sun" from the "earth," and it's walkable in well more than an hour, at which point I don't think that you're really keeping the scale in mind. We can always look at images or whatever if we want to get an intellectual sense of the scale of things. I think the advantage of a model is that you feel immersed in it, and I don't think you do at this scale. It's challenging! It's hard to find a location and a scale which gives you this human sense of the sizes involved. At most scales, you have to make the planets pinpricks in size. But, especially for the inner system, you can make it work. EDIT: Here's I think something that works. this video
