![\"colin08\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\")
<\/a>It\u2019s funny, but because Pluto has been unceremoniously dumped from the planet roster and become the Nicollette Sheridan of our Solar System, we have to update an old story (\u201cPlanet Highway,\u201d by Tricia Summers, October 2005):<\/p>\nThis summer, don\u2019t miss the University of Maine at Presque Isle\u2019s exhibit \u201cThe Maine Solar System Model,\u201d the largest scale replica of the sun and its orbiting planets in the universe. The centerpiece is the sun, 50 feet in diameter, on brilliant display in the Northern Maine Museum of Science.<\/p>\n
Then, outside the box, the other planets have been rolled into the Aroostook darkness along U.S. Route 1 like beautiful dice.<\/p>\n
Venus stands winsomely in the parking lot of the Budget Traveler Inn in Presque Isle, perfectly positioned in 1:93 million scale. \u201cIt\u2019s just down the road from Percy\u2019s Auto Sales [where Earth hangs out]. You can\u2019t really see Venus from any of the rooms or anything,\u201d Rick Archer of the Budget Traveler confided to us in 2005. \u201cI weed-whack around it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercury shimmers \u201cabove the garden of Burrelle\u2019s Information Services\u201d in Presque Isle. Uranus enjoys life as it should be \u201con the edge of a parking lot off Bridgewater Town Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking for Mars? It\u2019s up there, glowing beside the Welcome to Presque Isle sign on mile 1.5. Jupiter, a serious sphere weighing over 1,000 pounds, is \u201cstationed on the edge of Westfield,\u201d adorned with her moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Neptune leaps out of the darkness in Littleton, west of highway mile 36.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lot to think about when you\u2019re tunneling through the darkness with your high beams on this summer.<\/p>\n
By now you\u2019ll have noticed I haven\u2019t mentioned Pluto.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably in somebody\u2019s desk drawer\u201d since its declassification as a planet, joked our associate publisher, Jesse Stenbak. \u201cOr maybe in a coffee can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not a bad guess. Since the scale model\u2019s just one inch in diameter, it\u2019s pretty portable. But something\u2019s kept me up at night, wondering what\u2019s happened to Pluto (woodchipper, like in Fargo<\/em><\/i>?). I felt sorry for it when out of nowhere the International Astronomical Union declared it was no longer a planet in 2006\u2013did they think planets, however \u201ctrans-Neptunian,\u201d had no feelings?<\/p>\n No one likes to be marginalized. Pluto has an astonishing society backstory. Did you know it was discovered by a group led by Percy Lowell (1855-1916), astronomer, author of Occult Japan<\/em><\/i>, and brother to the marginalized poet Amy Lowell? The very name of Pluto was selected because it begins with the PL from Percy Lowell. How very New England. Think of the champagne cocktails. They probably announced Pluto\u2019s debut in Boston\u2019s Parker House hotel.<\/p>\n And now, poor Pluto\u2013locked in a dark drawer with no air holes, unremembered and unloved\u2026 We called to find out.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d says Jennet Nelson of the Houlton Information Center. \u201cWe\u2019re keeping Pluto. We grandfathered him in. He\u2019s ours.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s so Maine! Even science takes a vacation here. If we like you, you\u2019re in. Because you\u2019re one of us, baby. Meanwhile, \u201cthe students of UMPI have added two more dwarf planets, Ceres and Eris.\u201d Try not to run them over if you see them flashing across the road. Ditto for Nicollette Sheridan, who\u00a0 was dismissed by opposing counsel in her suit against Desperate Housewives<\/em> <\/i>as never having been a main character either.<\/p>\n Summerguide 2013 It\u2019s funny, but because Pluto has been unceremoniously dumped from the planet roster and become the Nicollette Sheridan of our Solar System, we have to update an old story (\u201cPlanet Highway,\u201d by Tricia Summers, October 2005): This summer, don\u2019t miss the University of Maine at Presque Isle\u2019s exhibit \u201cThe Maine Solar System Model,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-7842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-summerguide-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7842"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14460,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7842\/revisions\/14460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"