Peoria Views The End of Time

By Cori Anderson ‘18

To effectively show the end of the earth, a BBC television crew needed a visual representation of the planets for their series, “Horizon.” They turned to Peoria, and retired Peoria Riverfront Museum planetarium director Sheldon Schafer, for the illustration.

The crew focused on the museum’s community solar system model, which begins with the sun on the museum’s plaza and extends across central Illinois.

Accuracy of size and scale is part of what initially interested the directors of “Horizon,” but they also were attracted to the creative side of the Peoria model.

“Since the topic is a little bit depressing, the series director said that he wanted something that was a little bit more whimsical when talking about the scale and the size,” said Schafer, a part-time Bradley astronomy instructor. “After research, he found that our model would work well.”

This is the second time the model will be featured in major media, with Schafer’s work previously highlighted on the Discovery Channel.

“Hopefully we’ll get the amount of coverage for this program that we did when the old model was on the Discovery Channel,” he said. “We’ll get some more exposure to what we’ve done here.”

Schafer hopes this program and his work will help build interest in astronomy.

“The fun and quirkiness of this project can be as important as cutting-edge research, because it helps engage people,” he said.

The episode is still in production, with the air date still to be determined.

Read the Peoria Journal Star’s coverage of the experience.