Following a popular stint in the park outside the Brno Observatory earlier this summer, the Terralona – a 10-metre diameter model of planet Earth – will return on August 10th for one week, this time accompanied by the Lunalon, a similar-sized model of the Moon. Photo credit: Pavel Gabzdyl / Hvězdárna a planetárium Brno.
Brno, Aug 4 (BD) – From August 10th-16th, ten-metre models of the Earth and the Moon, known as “Terralona and Lunalon”, will be installed in Kraví Hora park, the centrepiece of a week of activities at the Brno Observatory, which will also include a summer cinema. The week-long program is entitled “Z Měsíce na Zemi” [“From the Moon to the Earth”].
The observatory’s website says that: “Planet Earth and its Moon have been inextricably linked for four and a half billion years. But they are quite far from each other. Almost four hundred thousand kilometers. That’s why we decided to give them one exceptional meeting.”
For one week, from Monday 10th to Sunday 16th August, between 3pm and midnight, these 10-metre inflatable models will be open for the public to visit in Brno’s Kraví Hora park, to see the bright colours of the Terralona and the dotted craters of the Lunalon.
The Terralona was previously installed in the park from July 6th-12th, and proved popular with the Brno public. One young visitor, eight-year-old Zoe, who visited the attraction with her brother Rowan, five, used the opportunity to brush up on her geography: “We couldn’t find Brno, maybe it was on the other side. But I remember seeing South America! We took pictures, it was super small and there were no houses.” Rowan agreed: “South America was all grass!”
The Terralona and Lunalon will form part of a week-long activity program which includes digital projections in the observatory itself, and an outdoor summer cinema showing English-language sci-fi films with Czech subtitles, including World War Z, Contact, and Star Trek.
The models will not be inflated in case of bad weather, and the capacity is limited to 1,000 people at a time, with social distancing measures in place. Facemasks must be worn inside the observatory itself.
For more information about the week program, visit the Observatory website.
The Moon and the Earth: In Scale
While the real planet Earth has a diameter of just under 13,000 kilometers, the Terralona is only 10 meters wide. On such a scale, Mount Everest would reach a height of 7 millimeters. The International Space Station moves at an altitude of 400 km at a speed of 28,000 km/h. We would find it at a height of 30 centimeters from the surface of the Terralona.
Our Moon would be less than 4 meters in diameter and would be about 300 meters away. The Sun would take the form of a sphere with a diameter of 1 kilometer, but it would be 120 kilometers away, roughly as far as Ostrava, which testifies to how desolate the universe is.
