Sep 03 2009
Conceive of the vastness …
By Jon Lomberg
In 1991 I painted a portrait of the Milky Way for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
Two depictions of the Milky Way Galaxy. The top half is the painting at the Smithsonian Institution. The bottom half is a view of the Galaxy Garden in Hawaii.
During the project I worked with expert astronomers and the painting was based on the best knowledge available of our galaxy. But effective though it was, it hung on the wall. I knew the most vivid way to teach people about their home galaxy was to make a model they could explore from inside.
Thus the idea for the Galaxy Garden was born.
You know you live on a planet called Earth. Everyone knows that. You know the Earth orbits the Sun as part of a solar system of planets and moons, asteroids and comets. Everyone knows that too. But do you understand our solar system’s place in the Milky Way Galaxy? This core concept is an equally important aspect of our identity but is much harder to conceive because its vastness is, well, inconceivable. Until the Galaxy Garden was created.
The Galaxy Garden is the world’s first walk-through model of the Milky Way Galaxy. Located near the town of Captain Cook on the Big Island of Hawaii, this unique installation lets Earthlings be galactic explorers in a lush tropical setting. The 100 foot diameter garden accurately maps our galaxy using carefully selected plants to represent the actual stars and nebulae of our cosmic home. This unique art/ science/ landscaping project is the first of its kind anywhere (at least on Earth!). Funding for the project was provided by the Change Happens Foundation.
One reason for choosing a garden as the model is that the galaxy, in many ways, resembles one. Gas clouds called nebulae form stars that eventually form more nebulae that form more stars. This cycle echoes the biological cycle of life, death, and rebirth, as I suggested in a painting in 1982, inspired by the beauty of nebulae.
Starflowers
In the Galaxy Garden nebulae are represented by flowers. The speckled leaves of the gold-dust croton plant symbolise the stars. Our Sun is located by a single small jewel we embedded in one leaf. Nearby stars – other jewels – are positioned at the correct distance on “our leaf”. All the stars you can see in the night sky without a telescope fit snugly on our leaf or on neighboring leaves.
After strolling though the garden, and coming upon this leaf, the realisation by visitors that we see just a miniscule part of our vast galaxy, is the revelation I was hoping to impart when I created the garden.
Our visible surroundings ... on just one leaf in a garden
More distant objects, like the famous Orion and Crab nebulae, are shown to scale, just a few feet from our Sun, using hibiscus flowers to represent these gorgeous cosmic clouds. Other esoteric features like the warp of the galactic disk, and the recently discovered “bar” at the galactic center are also represented, meaning the experts are satisfied and the average visitor is able to also grasp the geography and scale of the Milky Way.
Galaxy Garden fountain
The centerpiece of the model is a unique fountain that represents the giant black hole at our galaxy’s center. Many of the black hole’s attributes are depicted, including the funnel of warped space-time, the event horizon, and the jets produced by the black hole – one jet shoots up and another reflected in the fountain’s still water, shoots down!
The black hole
Since opening in October 2007, the garden has been visited by people from all around the world. I think Australia would be a wonderful place to locate another Galaxy Garden. It would be the first in the Southern Hemisphere, the hemisphere with the best view of the real Milky Way.
Anyone with ideas to help get this project started is welcome to contact me at lomberg@aloha.net.
More information and pictures are at www.galaxygarden.net. You can also see a video of me, talking about the garden on the Big Island Television website. Click on ‘Features’ and select ‘Galaxy Garden’.
See Jon’s other guest postings for 10 days:
Astronomical art: Representing Planet Earth
Behind the scenes: Contact, the movie
Secular prayers: messages to space
Jon:
As one of the people who helped you build the Galaxy Garden on the Big Island, I want to reiterate what a fabulous gift you have left the generations to come, discover the wonder of imagination.
Art by itself is good. Art that encourages scientific thinking is as good as it gets.