Erik Zachte via Wikimedia Commons
A planetarium built into the ceiling of a Dutch merchant’s home in the 1770s has become one of the latest additions to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Believed to be the oldest working planetarium in the world, the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker was constructed by wool merchant Eise Eisinga as a moving model of the solar system.
Eisinga, who was not a trained astronomer, built it to disprove a theory that planets were on a collision course and that the end of the world was near, when actually the planets were in orbits that would never interfere with each other. The planetarium, which still works, and the rest of Eisinga’s home, are open to the public.
