Don't’ read this one unless you want lots of information about the planets in the solar system.
OK, as many of you might have noticed, Gary and I are intrigued by lots of strange things that normal tourists probably don’t give a glance to. We found this attraction listed in a tour guide under ‘Anchorage of Children’. Well, count us as curious as children.
This is the Lightspeed Planet Walk. It begins in the center of Anchorage with a large yellow sun marked by red blotches which represent sun spots. There is a lot of explanation around this and what it represents, information about the solar system and also about Alaska.
I know that Alaska is the ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’ but not all of Alaska has the same amount of sun or of darkness. It’s a big state and the hours of sunlight vary from the north to the south.
We read all the information around this plaza and then began to walk the Planet Walk with every one of our steps representing one light year. The planets are arranged throughout Anchorage in locations that would represent their distance in light years from the sun.
Here’s the map of Anchorage and the location of each of the other planet displays so we would know where to walk. Now Neptune and Uranus are on a bike path that is more difficult to walk to - so I don’t have them here.
The size of each planet is representational of its actual size in the relation to the other planets and the sun.
We started with Mercury and then walked towards Venus. Mercury is pretty small, especially compared to the sun in the first picture above.
VENUS is n\hot not the person in the photo.
Oops, someone forgot to take a picture of the information about the Earth.
We then DROVE to Jupiter where it was located near a cool lake with a coffee house.
We also found a delightful walk by some wildflowers. Obviously someone planted these since they were so well matched and grouped. (Are they wild if someone has actually planted them?)
And, then we found Pluto out in Kincaid Park, a long way from the sun.
Pretty neat way to package information to kids - and some adults. We enjoyed it.
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