Planetary model Hagen
The Hagen planetary model is a walk-in, true-to-scale model of the solar system , which is used to illustrate the real size relationships.
description
In the urban area of the city of Hagen , bronze plates are embedded in the ground, which illustrate the sizes and orbits of the planets of the solar system on a scale of 1: 1 billion. Each of the eight planets is represented by at least one plate, which shows details about diameter, distance to the sun and possibly existing moons. In addition, the asteroids and the dwarf planet Pluto are shown. The approx. 1.4 m tall model of the sun is located in the Ratskeller, a restaurant under the town hall. The model orbits of the inner planets (up to and including Mars) run predominantly in the inner city area, while the outer planetary orbits extend into the suburbs ( Haspe , Boele , Dahl ).
In addition to the representations of the sun, planets, dwarf planets and asteroids, the so-called astro-center shows the apparent seasonal course of the sun through the zodiac . The Astro-Center was originally planned as a memorial for important astronomers such as Kepler and Copernicus .
The idea for this model was first published in 1959 by Walter KB Holz , who significantly supervised and built the planetary model until the 1970s. Holz has acted as a consultant in various other cities for the development of similar models. The Hagen model is very likely the first accessible planetary model in the world and is now part of the Hagen public observatory . A comparable model on a scale of 1:10 billion was inaugurated in Washington DC in 2001 .
The designs for the astro center and the bronze plates were made by Rolf Crummenauer .
Trivia
The musician Stefan Erbe dedicated his album Cosmic Dreamland to the Hagen planetary model in 1994 . Another album with electronic music has been released for the 50th anniversary of the model.
In the addendum to his novel Exponential Drift , the writer Andreas Eschbach refers to the planetary model in Hagen in order to illustrate different distances in our solar system.
literature
- Walter KB Holz: If the sun were on the town hall ... In: Hagen home calendar for the year 1960 , Hagen, 1959
- Ralph Brinks: The planet model in Hagen. In: Astronomie + Raumfahrt , Heft 6, pp. 33–35, 2006
See also
Web links
swell
- ↑ Walter KB Holz: If the sun were on the town hall ... In: Hagen home calendar for the year 1960 , Hagen, 1959