Planets of the Solar System Papercraft

The Westphalian Public Observatory and Planetarium in Recklinghausen, Germany is offering free downloads of Solar System paper models on their website. In addition to a model of the Sun, downloads include the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Included with the Earth model is a model of Earth's Moon and included with the Jupiter model are models of the largest of Jupiter's moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Downloads of the PDF templates for these and other astronomical papercraft may be found here.

Astronomy Papercraft: Heart Globe Earth

Here's another fascinating glue-less Earth globe papercraft from Canadian designer David Swart. Starting with the geometric form of a Pentagonal Hexecontahedron, David added slotted tabs in a way that makes each of the globe's faces heart shaped. A template of the globe is available here. Also for a limited time David is taking requests to create custom templates of both this heart globe and his previous slide together globe puzzle. Just send him your favorite spherical image and he will do the rest. Further details on the "request-athon" may be found here.

Japanese Telescope Paper Models

These detailed papercraft telescopes were designed and built by staff at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The models in the front row are radio telescopes. In the second row are infrared and optical telescope models. Templates for each of these along with a couple of satellite templates are available at the NAOJ's ALMA website.

Astronomy Papercraft - Globe Puzzle

This fascinating globe puzzle has been on my "to do" list for a long time, but I can't seem to find the time to build it. The puzzle is made out of 60 rectangular pieces which are slotted together and held in place with a small amount of tape to form a dodecahedron globe. The creator of the puzzle has a template and easy to follow instructions posted here. Using the same construction technique, the author has also created a "panorama sculpture" in which a panoramic photograph has been mapped onto the globe instead of an image of the Earth. The results are very cool. The panorama sculpture can be seen here.

Astronomy Paper Models #2

I came across an interesting website where you can upload any image and it will output a template of the image mapped onto an icosahedron. Above are photographs of two models I created using the website. For the first model I input a satellite image of the entire Earth. For the second I input an image of an 18th century European map of the celestial sphere which shows artistic representations of the constellations. Each model is about 3" across and they were each constructed with cardstock and double sided tape. To try it yourself, go to http://www.hirax.net/map/.

Astronomy Paper Models #1

Here are three astronomy papercraft I built. Each one was made with heavyweight typing paper and double sided tape. The larger one in the middle was my first attempt at paper modeling. From left to right they are:

• Moon Icosahedron by Calvin J. Hamilton, USA, 1998
  Model can be found here.
  


• Polyhedron Skyglobe by Richard Powell, Great Britain, 1998
  Model can be found here.
  
  
• Earth Rhombicuboctahedron by Carlos A. Furuti, Brazil, 2004
  Model can be found here.
  

The hardest part of each of these models was getting the final side taped in place without crushing the model.