Celestial Curiosities

🎵 mysterious as the dark side of the moon 🎵

58 Places

Lübeck, Germany

Astronomical Clock at St. Mary's Church

A stunning two-story timepiece within a medieval Brick Gothic church.

Added by gretchenmora

Cambridge, England

Queens' College Moondial

A complicated contraption for telling time by the moon.

Josh

Prague, Czechia

Prague Astronomical Clock

Macabre astrological automaton clock dating to the late 1400s.

michelle

Added by michelle

Washington, D.C.

Space Window at the Washington National Cathedral

A tiny piece of the Moon is embedded in this stained glass masterpiece.

Leslie McIntyre

Added by Leslie McIntyre

San Francisco, California

Long Now Orrery

A modern mechanical planetary system, part of a 10,000 year clock.

Annetta Black

Added by Annetta Black

The Zimmer Clock Tower and Museum

A 14th-century fortified keep showcases the masterpieces of an ingenious 20th-century clockmaker.

The Hague, Netherlands

Celestial Vault

Hidden within a Netherlands crater is a stone bed that lets those who lie in it see the sky as a curved surface.

Piacenza, Italy

Liver of Piacenza

The entire known universe of the ancient Etruscans is held inside this bronze model of a sheep’s liver.

ahvenas

Added by ahvenas

Cape Town, South Africa

South African Astronomical Observatory

This historic observatory was established to keep shipwrecks from littering the Cape of Good Hope.

Dylan

Zagreb, Croatia

Nine Views

This scale model of our solar system hid in plain sight for years before a physics team sought out all the planets.

SamM

Maine Solar System Model

This massive solar system model is sprawled out across Maine's suburban wilderness.

Added by sbplama

Flagstaff, Arizona

Roden Crater

The artist James Turrell is repurposing an extinct volcano crater as an observatory to experience the cosmos.

Added by zackofalltrades

Rujm el-Hiri, Golan

Rujm el-Hiri

Tens of thousands of rocks make up what is thought to be a giant star calendar.

alleywaykid

Added by alleywaykid

Beijing Ancient Observatory

This ancient Chinese observatory still contains early astronomy technology.

Rhinelander, Wisconsin

Kovac Planetarium

One extremely determined man's homemade universe.

Alicia Bones

Added by Alicia Bones

Herschel Museum of Astronomy

Eighteenth-century home, where Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

Trevor

Added by Trevor

Arlington, Virginia

Dark Star Park

This unique historical monument features large concrete spheres designed to resemble fallen stars.

Michael Inscoe

Added by Michael Inscoe

North Macedonia

Kokino Observatory

This 3,800-year-old site contains markers used to study the movement of the sun and moon and create a lunar calendar.

Added by mdimitar

Stará Bystrica, Slovakia

Stará Bystrica Astronomical Clock

The world's newest astronomical clock is also its most accurate.

ahvenas

Added by ahvenas

Copenhagen, Denmark

Jens Olsen's World Clock

The gilded, masterful astronomical clock will calculate time, dates, and planetary positions for thousands of years to come.

chrisdancy

Added by chrisdancy

Kopiec Wandy (Wanda Mound)

An artificial hill and apparent calendric structure built in the Early Middle Ages immortalizes a legendary Polish princess.

AdamTKincaid

Added by AdamTKincaid

Horologium mirabile Lundense

This Swedish astronomical clock was in storage for almost a century before its glorious workings were put on display once more.

Strasbourg, France

Strasbourg Astronomical Clock

There has been an astronomical clock on this spot since the 14th century.

Added by nanamarins212

Gdańsk, Poland

Gdansk Astronomical Clock

A huge wooden clock that is so beautiful its creator was forcibly blinded.

Added by duncanchappell

Besançon, France

Astronomical Clock of Besançon

One of the world's most complex timepieces.

mrobscurity

Added by mrobscurity

Chicago, Illinois

Lucent

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

Bkern

Lausanne, Switzerland

The Births of the Full Moon

A constellation of golden cobblestones shows the names of local children born under a full moon.

ahvenas

Added by ahvenas

Anstruther, Scotland

Anstruther Model Solar System

Bronze plates placed around this Scottish fishing village form a true-scale model of the solar system.

Added by duncanchappell

Santo Stefano Quisquina, Italy

Teatro Andromeda

Gorgeous views of Italian mountains and valleys form the backdrop of this unique open-air theater.

Added by enricosaravalle

Winslow, Arizona

Meteor Crater

This 4,000-foot-diameter hole is touted as "the most well known, best preserved meteorite crater on Earth."

Rachel

Added by Rachel

Tonopah, Nevada

Lunar Crater

This massive crater in the middle of nowhere was used to train astronauts for moon landings.

hana

Magdalena, New Mexico

Bracewell Radio Sundial

A one-of-a-kind sundial at the Very Large Array honors a radio astronomy pioneer, incorporating the original piers from his breakthrough radio telescope.

Added by zackofalltrades

Sun Tunnels

A sculpture for the sun and stars, created by Nancy Holt.

ProfessorElliot

Added by ProfessorElliot

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia's Moon Tree

A clone-tree in Washington Square Park sprung from seeds that went to the Moon and back.

Added by grislydiscovery

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Foucault Pendulum at the Franklin Institute

A daily replay of the experiment that proved the rotation of the Earth.

hana

Chichen Itza, Mexico

El Caracol

No telescopes, no power, no gift shop: The Observatory of Chichen Itza, one of the world's oldest observatories, takes astronomy back to basics.

EricGrundhauser

Added by EricGrundhauser

Astronomical Clock of Lyon

For hundreds of years, automatons moving to metallic music have been marking the passage of time.

Allison

Added by Allison

La Palma, Spain

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

This mountaintop observatory is home to one of the world's largest reflective telescopes.

CoolCrab

Added by CoolCrab

Lovell, Wyoming

Bighorn Medicine Wheel

Native Americans built this circle of stones, which was used to predict astronomical events.

Trevor

Added by Trevor

Monterey, California

Monterey's Moon Tree

A tree grown from astronaut seeds which were exposed to cosmic rays.

Added by Martin

Brno Astronomical Clock

A peculiar clock commemorates a historic victory won by ringing the noonday bell an hour early.

ahvenas

Added by ahvenas

Macclesfield, England

Orrery at Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre

One of the largest mechanical models of the solar system in the world.

daviddoochin

Added by daviddoochin

Stockholm, Sweden

Sweden Solar System

The world's largest model of our planetary system.

Peoria, Illinois

Peoria Scale Model of the Solar System

The world's third-largest scale model of the planets.

Josh

Ithaca, New York

The Sagan Planet Walk

Pluto is still considered a planet in Ithaca, New York.

Trevor

Added by Trevor

Copacabana, Bolivia

Horca del Inca

Astronomical observatory above Lake Titicaca.

serflac

Added by serflac

Esperance, Australia

Skylab’s Remains

A tiny museum in Esperance, Australia, displays a bunch of space debris from NASA’s Skylab.

Tony Dunnell

Added by Tony Dunnell

Magic Sphere of Helios

This mystical orb covered in strange symbols is thought to have been used in ancient Greek magical rituals.

Aika