munnecket:
The Galaxy Garden from a distance. This is a model of the Milky Way, showing the arms of the galaxy, as well as the black hole in the center
munnecket:
Jon Lomberg pointing out the Galaxy Garden, his effort to build a scale model botanical representation of the Milky Way galaxy. Jon was Carl Sagan's Principal artistic collaborator for 20+ years.
munnecket:
If we shrink the Milky Way to 100 feet in diameter, then 1" represents 83 light years. The golden pin represent the location of the sun and the other earrings represent the nearest stars. However, the sun would be about size of a virus.
munnecket:
close up of the speck where the sun resides.... just a dot on a leaf of a 100 foot diameter garden.
munnecket:
Jon pointing out to Don Munnecke the maximum distance to stars visible to the naked eye...
munnecket:
More discussion. 94 years may have slowed down Don's physical activity a bit, but he remains intensely curious about the universe. And Jon's enthusiasm for communicating about science and astronomy seems boundless, as well.
munnecket:
The view across the black hole. The spiky plants represent star clusters. I was careful to keep my camera outside the event horizon of the black hole.
munnecket:
The Galaxy Garden. Notice the bulge in the middle, hiding the black hole, that can be seen only after winding your way through the spiral arms .