About Maine Solar System Model
Most scale models fit inside a museum. Northern Maine built one so large that seeing it properly requires a car. The Maine Solar System Model stretches almost 160 miles along U.S. Route 1, turning towns, libraries, roadside businesses, and open stretches of highway into markers inside a gigantic three-dimensional solar system.
The model uses a wonderfully simple scale: one mile on the road equals one astronomical unit, the average distance from Earth to the Sun. At that scale, driving seven miles per hour would represent traveling at the speed of light. The Sun stands outside Preble Hall at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, while planets and moons appear at proportional distances along Route 1. The full project now reaches from the dwarf-planet region near Madawaska south toward Topsfield.
The weirdness increases when the size of the individual worlds is compared with the distances between them. The Sun model is about 23 feet tall. Jupiter is large enough to make an obvious roadside object, while some dwarf planets are close to marble size. One of Jupiter’s model moons, Io, is represented by a fiberglass-covered golf ball mounted near its planet. Hundreds of volunteers, schools, businesses, and community members helped construct and maintain the project.
The model was dedicated in 2003 and has continued evolving as astronomy has changed. Pluto remains represented in ways that reflect both its former planet status and its present dwarf-planet classification, and additional dwarf planets have been added. UMPI’s July 2026 update says the expanded model now stretches almost 160 miles. It may be the only roadside attraction where missing an exit can accidentally send you millions of scaled miles past a planet.