Created by Nick Schweitzer, Jim Peterson, Tsela Barr, and Jim Rummel with the help of UW Space Place.

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Planet Trek Dane County
​Monona Terrace to Mt. Horeb | 2009

Planet Trek Dane County (PTDC) was first installed in April 2009 as a celebration of the International Year of Astronomy by UW Space Place and partners. PTDC is a temporary installation uniting science education, art, and outdoor recreation. It was first on display from April-October 2009. PTDC is a scale model of our solar system: We shrunk the Sun, planets, and other bodies by the same factor so that the sizes and distances are represented to scale relative to each other. In our model, the scale is about 200 million to 1. This means the Sun is a sphere about 24 feet in diameter at Monona Terrace, and Pluto the size of a marble in Mt. Horeb. 
The PTDC Sun is located at Monona Terrace Convention Center in downtown Madison. The trek through the solar system followed the Southwest Commuter Bike Trail, then the Military Ridge Bike Trail. PTDC ended at Pluto, which was located about 23 miles away from Monona Terrace in the village of Mt. Horeb.