PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – To mark the 20th anniversary of the Maine Solar System Model, University of Maine at Presque Isle officials are announcing plans for a crucial addition: a 25-foot-tall three-dimensional model of the sun. Fundraising efforts will begin immediately for the $50,000 project, which will showcase a quarter of the northern hemisphere using fabricated sheet metal and tubular arches.
The Maine Solar System — the largest scale model of the solar system in the western hemisphere, and the second largest such model in the world — stretches for nearly 100 miles along U.S. Route 1 between UMPI’s Pullen-Folsom Hall in Presque Isle and Topsfield, located in Washington County. The model features nine planets (including Pluto, which was a planet when the model was first established), three dwarf planets (including Pluto, based on its current status), and seven associated large moons. This new addition will allow the sun to be a more physically impressive and highly visible presence.
“This is the largest installation we’ve ever aimed to do in the model’s 20-year history,” Dr. Kevin McCartney, recently retired UMPI Professor of Geology, Maine Solar System Model coordinator, and fundraising lead, said. “I couldn’t be more excited for us to finally be adding a 3-D sun to this model, and I know the thousands upon thousands of tourists who have traveled to northern Maine to see it over the years will feel the same way. It’s one thing to have an indoor, two-dimensional representation of the sun painted in the hallways of Folsom Hall with its leading edge in the entrance stairwell. It’s quite another thing entirely to have a 3-D sun large enough to fit 125 of our Jupiter models in it standing impressively outside the building for all to see.”
This sub-section of the heavenly body will be a free-standing framework with yellow-painted sheet metal panels affixed to the exterior walls behind it. The framework will consist of a 25-foot-tall post along the sun’s axis and four arches that will extend from the top of the post, the sun’s northern pole, down to the sun’s equator at ground level. The outdoor structure will have a 25-foot radius. It will be located at the southern entrance of Pullen-Folsom Hall, at the corner where the two buildings meet.
The sun model, which McCartney has dubbed “the Star of the Star City,” will be dedicated in memory of three individuals: Lynn McNeal, Michael Clark, and Jeanie McGowan. McNeal oversaw the Caribou Regional Technology Center, which built the Jupiter and Saturn models. Clark coordinated construction at the Uranus and Neptune sites. McGowan provided countless hours painting the model planets and developing science education programming associated with the Maine Solar System.
The project is approved for construction once funds are raised. Donations to fund the sun can be made online at www.umpi.edu/sungift or by mailing a check made payable to UMPI, c/o Dr. Debbie Roark, UMPI Office of Advancement, 181 Main St., Presque Isle, ME 04769.
Established by UMPI and the northern Maine community, the Maine Solar System Model was built entirely by volunteers, with all materials and labor donated. This larger-than-life community project involved a consortium of 12 schools and more than 700 businesses and individuals throughout northern Maine. Dedicated in 2003, this three-dimensional model is presented at a scale of one mile equaling one astronomic unit . One AU is the distance from the earth to the sun, or 93,000,000 miles, meaning a person traveling at seven miles an hour alongside the model would be moving at the speed of light. The Maine Solar System Model combines the fun of a scavenger hunt with a science education experience like no other — the chance to witness the sheer expanse of the solar system by driving it mile by mile.
