Topsfield, 54 Miles South of Pluto: the Solar System in Maine

Where the sparse, rolling landscape of northern Maine can get a bit monotonous, some relief is provided by the Maine Solar System Model (MSSM). The MSSM, constructed in 2000 by the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI), is the fourth-largest solar system model in the world (3). It is centred at UMPI’s Folsom Hall, which houses the Northern Maine Museum of Science. The scale is 1 to 93 million, which means that one Astronomical Unit (AU) equals one mile (1.6 km). All of our system’s planets are located along US Route 1, in order to present drivers with the opportunity to get a feeling of the scale of our solar system. Its original length was about 40 miles (64 km), all the way to Pluto, at the Tourist Information Centre in Houlton.