Trek spans world's largest complete model of solar system

By Charles Storch
Chicago Tribune

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The invitation was intriguing, coming as it did from the curator of the solar system.

The community solar system, that is, a set of sized-to-scale and carefully placed planet models extending as far as 40 miles from the sun, otherwise known as the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria.

"It is the largest complete model of the solar system in the world," said Schafer, Lakeview's vice president of education and planetarium overseer. But he is planning an even bigger one that should silence any doubters.

And here was Schafer asking whether I wanted to accompany him on the museum's 10th annual Interplanetary Bicycle Ride, a two-day trip in mid-August. Depending on paths taken, a traveler might cover up to 16 billion miles of space — or 125 miles of central Illinois.

The trip would be no sweat for a serious cyclist, but I had not covered any real distance on a bike in decades. I knew this would be a stern test and wasn't sure my stern was up to it.

But a brochure made the ride enticing. Consider the bragging rights, it said. "Who else can say they've cycled to Pluto?" And by pedaling faster than the speed of light (equal to about 7 mph in this model), riders "will actually return younger than when they started."

"Sheldon," I said, "I'm in."

As an astronomer and science educator, Sheldon Schafer bristled at popular depictions of the solar system as same-size planets in tight, neat circles about the sun. He wanted to construct a model with planet sizes and distances proportional to the vast dimensions of space. He wanted his model to have good-size planets, so the distances would have to be significant.

He knew of other models in cities around the world, but he wanted his to be bigger and more scientifically accurate.

He finally got his opportunity in 1992, 16 years after he joined Lakeview as planetarium director. He proposed a model as a supplement to a big NASA traveling exhibit, and a local foundation gave the museum $10,000.
 
Schafer set his scale by using the planetarium's 36-foot-diameter dome as the sun, later painted on an outer museum wall. A mile in his model equals 126 million miles in space.

He got a local firm to build Plexiglas planets — ranging in diameter from three-fourths of an inch (Pluto) to nearly 4 feet (Jupiter) — and an artist, Peoria's Walter Kinsman, to painstakingly paint the spheres.

Schafer plotted orbital paths, and along each he found an area establishment glad to display a planet on its premises.

Lakeview spokeswoman Kathleen Woith said that over the years some models had to be moved as businesses got tired of them or moved away.

Today, for example, Mercury is in a camera store and Neptune in a car dealership. Earth, an insignificant 4 inches in diameter, is mounted, trophylike, at a gas station.

For some establishments, the planets have melted into the surroundings. A large, ringed Saturn hovers over the entrance of the Kroger in East Peoria. An assistant manager told me he had worked at the supermarket two years and never knew why it was there.

The Interplanetary Bicycle Ride helps Lakeview attract new audiences and raise money. Educational and athletic, it is astrophysical fitness.

The first day of the ride, a Saturday, was a tour of the outer planets: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Many doubt little Pluto is a real planet. All I can say is that the sphere in a glass display case at Good's Furniture in Kewanee is not the original. That was stolen years ago. Good's put a gumball in its place until Schafer found out and ordered a replacement.

After leaving Kewanee, we entered the Kuiper comet belt — hilly back roads along cornfields — and headed for Neptune.

There, the Peoria Astronomical Society had set up filtered telescopes so we could observe sunspots.

We had ridden 24 miles. We set off for Uranus, 10 miles away, and then a final 6 miles to Saturn.

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, but night was descending on me. I remember receiving a certificate attesting to my having traveled 5 billion miles — 40 miles of terra firma.

Sleep and Advil restored me, but I decided not to bike with Schafer and 14 others as they set out from the museum's sun early Sunday for a 25-mile, round-trip tour of the inner planets.

I said goodbye to Schafer, gassed up my car at Earth and headed for Chicago. I longed to feel its gravitational pull.

In 2008, Schafer's sun is expected to move 5 miles south to a new museum now in the planning stages, and expand along with the size of a new planetarium dome. So Schafer will have to reconstruct his model accordingly.

He has been plotting a new model, using diameters of 50 to 55 feet for the sun. Such a system would need bigger planets and could stretch as far as 50 miles from Peoria, depending on where Schafer situates that ornery Pluto. Its eccentric orbit at time puts it closer to the sun than Neptune.

Some solar system models built after Schafer's have a larger scale factor but are not as complete as his.

One in Stockholm extends 186 miles but is missing Saturn and Jupiter. The model at the University of Maine at Presque Isle extends 40 miles along a road; Schafer's radiates in all directions and is as wide as 55 miles across.

Besides, Schafer said, "Their sun is lame."