Sam's Solar System is a combination geocaching and second grade science fair project. It's a model of the solar system built to a scale of 1/71,504,324. While that seems like a big number, it means that an astronomical unit (the average distance between the sun and Earth) is 1.3 miles in the model.
Our model sun is located in the new Preston Ballfields park. If you drive to the park, you'll see a cul-de-sac with a big circular planted area in the center. The circle is 62 feet in diameter, and we used it to set the scale of the model. To get the full educational benefit of the series, you really should stop by and look at the sun so you have a good feel for it. Plus, it's very close to the parking area for getting Venus, so you might as well.
There is a geocache for each of the eight planets and the three dwarf planets, plus a bonus cache for anyone who puts in the travel to get the first eleven. Inside each of the planetary caches is a scale model of the planet represented by the cache (on the same scale as the distances between the planets). They range in size from about a half inch in diameter for Ceres (the smallest dwarf planet) to 6 feet, four inches for Jupiter. You should look at each of the planets to get a feel for how big they are, both relative to each other, to the sun, and especially to the interplanetary distance between them.
On the inside cover of the log books in each of the caches is a six digit number. You need to collect all eleven of these numbers to get the coordinates of the bonus cache. There are instructions on the bonus cache page explaining what to do with them. For now, it’s just important to write down the number.
Caches in the series:
Sam's Solar System: Mercury
Sam's Solar System: Venus
Sam's Solar System: Earth
Sam's Solar System: Mars
Sam's Solar System: Ceres
Sam's Solar System: Jupiter
Sam's Solar System: Saturn
Sam's Solar System: Uranus
Sam's Solar System: Neptune
Sam's Solar System: Pluto
Sam's Solar System: Eris
Sam's Solar System: Bonus
Facts about Venus:
Maximum distance from the sun: 108,942,109 km (.728 AU)
Minimum distance from the sun: 107,476,259 km (.718 AU)
Length of year: 225 days
Radius of planet: 6052 km (.950 Earths)
Mass of planet: 4.9 x 10^24 kg (0.815 Earths)
Moons: none
Venus is along the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail. Park at the parking coordinates and go down the trail. There's no decent way to get to the cache from Preston-Fall City Road (unless you go down to where the trail crosses and follow the trail up).
"Eccentricity" is a measure of how circular (or non-circular) a planet's orbit is. Venus has one of the least eccentric (and so most circular) orbits of any planet. While that may not mean much to you as the cache finder, to the cache hiders it meant that we had only about a 100' wide band into which to hide the cache. Since we'd decided to put it on the trail, that didn't leave much in the way of hiding options. Nevertheless, we found an acceptable place and didn't have to revise our basic plan.
You'll earn the last point of terrain in the final five feet of approach to the hide. Please be sure to re-cover the cache so that no muggles get it.
