It’s easy to see Jupiter as you travel past Westfield in Aroostook County, but you might not notice the newest installation at the small park that contains the biggest planet in the Maine Solar System Model.
Stop there and you’ll see a tall, shiny, black pole topped with a tiny orb. The golf-ball-sized sphere represents Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, which was recreated and installed on Monday.
The Maine Solar System Model has garnered attention — and tourists — for more than 25 years. Stretching from Topsfield in Washington County to the St. John Valley along U.S. Route 1, it is the largest complete, designed-to-scale solar system model in the world, according to its originator. Monday’s installation makes it whole once more.
“This now is a 150-mile solar system model, and now, after finishing the one moon that we’ve lost in the last few years, it is complete again,” said Kevin McCartney, University of Maine professor emeritus of geology, who has overseen the model from the start. “This is probably the physical object that brings more tourists up here than anything else.”
Sweden has the largest solar system model by size. It’s enormous, said McCartney, who has been there. But it’s missing Saturn, and Jupiter is represented by a circle of lights — so it isn’t truly complete, he said.
McCartney first conceived of northern Maine’s model in 1999. Over 27 years, the system has grown to include the eight planets, Pluto and four other dwarf planets and seven notable moons, belonging to Earth, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto.
The most recent additions have been a 3D model of the sun, which was unveiled in 2024 at the Presque Isle university, and dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake, which were installed last year in Lille and Madawaska, respectively.
Io was damaged about five or six years ago, McCartney said. He is unsure how, but what remained was a tiny crescent atop the pole. This year the planets aligned — so to speak — for the work to be done.
It turns out larger planets are easier to finish than tiny Io, which is literally a fiberglass-covered golf ball, he said.
The moon, which measures 1.6 inches in diameter, joins representations of moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto at the site.
Every part of the solar system installation — painting, placement, signs, small parks around the sites and maintenance — has involved community members, McCartney said. Io was no different.
“It’s all been a community project. It’s all been done by volunteers, just doing things on their own time and money,” McCartney said.
MPG Truck and Tractor in Presque Isle took down Io’s 15-foot pole, stored and repainted it. High school students painted the moon, and technicians placed it on the pole, which MPG staff installed on Monday.
The recent facelift provided a full-circle moment for a Limestone woman. Jessica Goodwin, who teaches art at Caribou High School, was among those who painted the original Io in 2002. Now, more than two decades later, she supervised the students working on the new model, which included her daughter.
Izzy Goodwin, Claire Brissette and Willow Rancourt painted the tiny moon, and added finishing touches with airbrushing aided by Caribou Technology Center instructor Stacey Turner.
Goodwin said seeing her students and her daughter involved in a project she herself had worked on was special.
“I have always loved driving by the planet that I helped paint and would always tell whoever I was with that I had helped to create it,” Goodwin said. “It was rewarding to watch them learn a new skill while making their own artistic choices to bring Io to life.”
For McCartney, the most fascinating thing about the entire model is that it’s built completely to scale. The sizes of each celestial body were carefully calculated at a certain ratio to the real ones, as were the distances between each of them along the route.
Also new this summer, sunflowers have been placed around the model of the sun at the university, courtesy of Presque Isle resident Leo Freeman. As for what’s next, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars could use repainting, McCartney said.
He’s looking for volunteers.
McCartney, who with wife Kate owns the Old Iron Inn bed and breakfast in Caribou, can attest to the solar system’s appeal. Though winter sports unquestionably draw huge numbers of people to the area, hundreds of visitors are drawn north each year to tour the model, he said.
“We have had [people] who’ve come up here in this past year and said, ‘Well, we saw the solar system model years ago, but now that you’ve got dwarf planets, we had to come up and see those, too,’” he said. “It’s been quite a resource for The County.”