Solar System Walk
Lose your intergalactic virginity
Dear Sir Richard Branson,
We understand your need for perspective on humanity’s insignificance, your desire to break the bounds of gravity and take a giant step – a leap, if you will – into the universe. We totally get your curiosity about life on other planets, and your craving for moon cake. Virgin Galactic? A commendably modern and adventurous endeavour. But Sir Richard, please – there is really no need to leave our humble planet to get your space fix.
We cordially invite you to visit the fair city of Melbourne and to take a stroll along the St Kilda foreshore, where a model of the solar system awaits. You read correctly: the Sun, all eight planets and an asteroid are presented here, at a scale of one to one billion, for your viewing pleasure. And even more impressively, Port Phillip Bay’s fetching crescent shape is perfectly shaped for this very journey, as the pint-sized sun can be viewed from every one of the nine mini-me planetary locations.
Your journey will begin at Marine Pier, not far from the white lighthouse in St Kilda, where a blazing metallic ball 139 cm in diameter (that’s the Sun, FYI) awaits. You’ll continue at a relaxed pace along the shared bike- and walk-way with the beach and its impressive array of palm trees, bars and beachgoers radiating all around you to Mercury, then to Venus, to Earth and Earth’s moon, then on past Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune at a giddying pace.
Finally, right down past Princes Pier on the Boulevard, a whopping 5.9 km from the Sun, you’ll reach that dastardly asteroid, Pluto, just .24 cm in diameter.
Think of the billions, even zillions of dollars you’ll save. Not to mention the workout you’ll get, when you consider that every centimetre you walk is equivalent to 10,000 galactic kilometres. So what do you say, Sir Richard? Impressed? You’re welcome. Drinks are on you.
Love,
Hide & Seek