About The Helios Project
Why is this exhibit called The Helios Project? In Greek mythology, Helios rode his chariot across the sky each day as he brought the sun from east to west. Like Helios, today you will have the opportunity to walk or ride through the heavens as you learn about our solar system and the universe.
Mission
The mission of The Helios Project is to educate visitors on the vast size and diversity of our universe in an outdoor environment, while imparting a new appreciation for life on our planet Earth.
There is no other exhibit quite like this. While there are other outdoor exhibits with “solar system walks,” this is the first (to our knowledge) that also takes the visitor though our Milky Way galaxy and eventually the ends of the Universe itself.
It is important to follow the changes in scale as you move through the exhibits. The solar system is on one scale, the Milky Way scale is reduced even further, and the Universe is reduced a third time.
Before reducing the scales, it is helpful to know the actual sizes:
Solar System diameter = 10 billion miles
Milky Way diameter = 100,000 light years
Universe diameter = 93 billion light years
Getting Familiar with Units & Large Numbers
Stack of 100 pennies = 6.1 inches
Stack of 1,000 pennies = 5′ 1″
Stack of 1 million pennies = 1 mile
Stack of 1 billion pennies = 1,000 miles (Medina to Orlando)
Stack of 1 trillion pennies = 1 million miles (to the moon and back almost 4 times)
1 mile = 1.6 kilometers
1 Astronomical Unit = distance from Sun to Earth = 93 million miles
1 light year = distance light travels in a year = 5.9 trillion miles
