Theme trail: Planets

The planet trail is a particular type of nature trail featuring a scaled-down model of the solar system along the hiking route.
As is customary, the planets as well as the sun are true to scale in size and distance along the route. Using the common “planet scale” of 1:1 billion, the outermost planet Neptune is located just under 4.5 km away from the sun. With inclusion of the dwarf planet Pluto, which until 2006 was counted as a fully fledged planet, the planet trail covers nearly 6 km. Information boards are often set up next to the planet models with information on the respective planet.
Planet trails are appealing because of the opportunity for mental stimulation from the information boards alongside physical exercise. The almost natural partitioning of the entire route into the planet distances also conveys a tangible impression of the dimensions in the solar system. With the increasing distance from the sun, the distance between the planets also becomes greater. That’s why the walking time between two planets increases significantly the further you go. While the distance from the sun past Mercury and Venus to the Earth is only 150 metres, hikers have to walk nearly 700 metres between the neighbouring planets of Jupiter and Saturn. The true-to-scale planet models also give a sense of proportion. At the scale of 1:1 billion, the earth is a blue marble of just 13 mm in diameter while the largest planet Jupiter is almost 15 cm and the sun, with a diameter of around 1.4 m, clearly dominates all other celestial bodies. If you stand by the model of the earth with the model of the sun in view, you can compare its visible size with the actual sun in the sky, convincing you of the accuracy of the scale.
The first planet trail in Switzerland was opened in 1973 in Burgdorf in the Canton of Bern. In 1976, the second planet trail was created in the Laufen district of Basel. In total, there are around 29 themed trails in Switzerland (as of 2019).