Planetarium Events Calendar

Community Solar System

The Lakeview Museum Community Solar System is the world's largest, as listed in the Guiness Book of Records. It is a unique model of our Sun and its nine planets, in which both size and distance are represented on the same scale (42 ft. = 1 million miles/1 m = 1.4x105 km). The planets are centered around the sun, depicted on the Lakeview Planetarium dome, offering an earthbound concept of the vastness of space.

While models of the solar system may be common, virtually all of these show only relative sizes or relative distances to the same scale if any attempt is made at all to be accurate. (Frequently such models only show the relative order of the planets from the sun). In any case, the impression is created that our solar system is much smaller and the planets much closer than they actually are, and a correct understanding of the vastness of space is totally lost.

Since the space between the planets is enormous relative to the sizes of the planets, few models exist in the world which show the true scale of our solar system, since they have to be miles across.

Peoria's model starts at Lakeview Museum of the Arts and Sciences. The Sun is the planetarium dome, and is also painted on the outside of the building. Descriptive graphics about the Sun and the model are located in the planetarium lobby. At each planet location visitors find a custom Plexiglas sphere, painted by local spacescape artist Walter Kinsman. Planets approximate the detail seen in the best space probe astronomical photographs. The 45 inch sphere of Jupiter is surrounded by a 76 inch ring system of clear Plexiglas, and Saturn's 3 foot sphere is surrounded by a 90 inch ring plane, painted in full detail. Uranus and Neptune also have their rings represented.

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