If you’ve ever wanted to put the scale of the solar system into perspective, best make your way to Londonderry.
The Our Place in Space project officially opened on Friday – Earth Day – in the city.
At its heart is a scale model of the solar system that spans a 10km (six mile) trail on the banks of the Foyle and features sculptures of the planets.
A number of events have been organised around the trail’s opening, including a world record attempt.
Hundreds of suitably-dressed people landed on the Bay Road, where the trail begins, on Saturday in an attempt to break the world record for the most number of astronauts.
Organisers have said they have broken the record with 716 astronauts, though that is still to be officially verified.
The sculpture trail project is part of Unboxed: Creativity, a UK wide festival celebrating science, technology, engineering and maths.
The Derry project is the brainchild of author and artist Oliver Jeffers and astrophysicist Prof Stephen Smartt. It’s produced by the city’s Nerve Centre.
“The whole thing is about a 590,000:1 scale model,” Oliver said.
“The planets are accurately scaled in size and distance from each other just to show really how much space there is in space”.
The trail begins with a sculpture of the Sun, spanning some 2.5m
Earth lies just over 300 metres away on the scaled trail, and is just over 2cms in diameter.
Pluto, about the size of a matchhead in the Derry version, is a further 9km away.
Solar system explorers will be guided along the trail with the help of an app.
Oliver added: “The whole idea is to keep looking back at ourselves, the only place known to be habitable to human life in the entire universe.
“It encourages you to think about how we conduct ourselves, with ourselves, in this very limited amount of space we have in space.”
The event runs in Derry over the next month before moving onto Belfast, Cambridge and then the coast of County Down later in 2022.
As part of the opening weekend, Oliver and Prof Smartt were joined by Sky at Night presenter Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock for an in-conversation event in the city’s Guildhall.
On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of space cadets gathered in an attempt to set a new world record for the most people dressed as astronauts.
Participants were given a strict checklist as their costumes had to meet specific criteria in order to be counted among the official entries.
Costume workshops were held in the city earlier this week and, when suitably suited and booted, the astronauts reported for duty at Bay Road Park.
A total of 716 people took part in the record bid according to the organisers. If the figure is officially verified, it would be almost triple the total of the current world record.
This weekend’s activities are just the start of a month-long series of free events in the city over the course of Our Place in Space’s run.
David Lewis from the Nerve Centre said almost two years of planning had brought the project to life.
“It’s not like anything people will have seen before – the trail takes Oliver’s signature illustrative style and combines it with Stephen’s encyclopaedic knowledge of space,” he said.
“It’s a remarkable piece of work which transcends art, science, technology, and maths.”
He said the programme of events is “exciting and different with something for everyone”.
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