Long Now Orrery

A modern mechanical planetary system, part of a 10,000 year clock. Inside the offices of the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco is a small museum dedicated to the art of long-term thinking. Surrounded by diagrams, molds, and assorted mechanical contraptions is the centerpiece: the orrery. Designed as part of the ambitious 10,000 year Clock of the Long Now project (a model of which is at the Science Museum in London), the orrery is a modern incarnation of a the planetary models that rose to popularity during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.