Saint Louis Is The Final Frontier On A 300 Mile Bike Ride From Adler Planetarium

An Adler astronomer’s ambitious new public outreach plan shoots for the stars by cycling to them. Symbolically, at least.

That scale is logarithmic, meaning that each step is ten times as long as the previous one. If that sounds complicated, don’t worry, Walkowicz is ready to patiently explain it on the trip. At each of the seven stops on the eight-day journey (she’ll take a break in Normal to recover from a 70 mile-in-a-day bike-a-thon), she and the small Galaxy Ride team from Adler plan to discuss their logarithmic map at pop-up astronomy events using household materials like toilet paper, balloons, and string. Walkowicz hopes that the Galaxy Ride will make space a little less, well, remote for the general public.

The Galaxy Ride begins Fri 9/18 at the Adler and ends on Fri 9/25 at the Saint Louis Science Center. You can follow along on Adler’s website or interact using the #AdlerGalaxyRide hashtag on Twitter.