Aside from a plaque that reads, "Planetarium," one would hardly be able to tell that inside this seemingly cozy, Dutch house lives the oldest, accurate moving model of our solar system. What is harder to believe still is that the model, built in 1781, is still functioning to this day!

Eise Eisinga, a wool comber and amateur astronomer living in Franeker, Netherlands, decided to build the model in 1774 after a mass panic occurred among the Dutch following an alignment of the planets earlier that year. People were terrified that a plantary collision was imminent. Eisinga hoped his model would help prove that nothing of the sort was going to happen.

The model was built from oak wood, nine weights, a pendulum clock, and over 10,000 hand-forged nails. Each planet continues to orbit the Sun at an appropriate speed (i.e. Earth, once a year, and Saturn, every 29 years). The museum is also home to a variety of old astronomical instruments as well as modern day astronomy equipment.

See an error? Know more? Log-in to edit this place.