Laura Cesari, aka Chain of Being, makes beaded models of the solar system that, by the way, can also be worn as necklaces. Her work was recently featured on the blog of Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society:
Years ago, I discovered a particularly nice piece of agate in a friend’s bead shop that reminded me of Jupiter, and created a “Jupiter necklace” with other beads orbiting around it like moons. In the Solar System design, I decided to “zoom out” and focus on using small beads to measure the proportional distances between the planets. It took some calculations, a few abstractions, and a couple of prototypes: the first version was 75 inches long, made with 7-millimeter tubular glass bugle beads, each bead representing about 20 million miles. This Solar System Necklace design seemed like a good way to translate the mind-boggling distances of space into something tangible, something that people can measure physically with familiar objects.
Laura will sell you a complete 75″ necklace based on her original design for $75, a shorter 38″ version for $55, a kit for $24.50, or just the pattern for $5.
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