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Friday, May 26, 2023

On the Fence

A family in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle has come up with a whimsical way to depict the immensity of space: they've turned their wooden fence into the solar system. 

On these planks you'll see the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth plus our moon. Far enough down the block that my phone camera couldn't capture them in one shot are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 

A final panel reads "Where is Pluto? Pluto would be across our neighbor's driveway," followed by a discussion of Pluto's status as dwarf planet, a fact about which some scientists are "on the fence." 😊

It's not the sort of thing I'm used to seeing on my neighborhood walks. But isn't that point of travel — to take us away and shake us up and help us see our world, even our universe, with fresh eyes?