The duck pond in the picturesque village of Otford.
‘Many Vile Earthlings Munch Jam Sandwiches Under Newspaper Piles’.
Even as our primary school teacher had us reciting this mnemonic to remember the order of the planets, our eight-year old self wondered what use it would ever have in our day-to-day adult lives, future NASA career not withstanding. Never, in a million (light) years did we imagine we’d be muttering it under our breath in an attempt to navigate around a small village in the Kent countryside.
Venus, with the sun (left) and Mercury (right) in the background.
Yes, we’re old enough to remember when Pluto was a planet, and so is the Otford Solar System. Built as a millennium addition to the Kent village of Otford, the model solar system consists of markers representing nine planets, plus the sun. It’s a very serious construction the scale of it is a staggering 1:4,595,700,000 (so 1mm = 4,595.7km), and it captures the positions the planets were in as the new