Nunez Community College will soon house the entire solar system on its campus in St. Bernard Parish.
Nunez Chancellor Dr. Tina Tinney announced last week that the college is one of 100 sites across the country approved by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and Exhibitology to host a Voyage Mark II Scale Model Solar System.
Dr. Tinney told a small gathering of special guests in the Nunez Administration Building that the college will break ground on the Voyage Mark II model in early 2022.
The permanent exhibit will span the entire Nunez campus, with the sun, all eight planets, asteroids and Pluto represented by stanchions spaced at 1 to the 10-billion scale based on their orbits. Each stanchion will feature a 3D model and a placard that provides location information and other facts for exhibit guests.
The Voyage Mark II exhibit is the latest effort in Nunez’s mission to make its campus a hub for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) education for St. Bernard Parish and the entire region.
Nunez is home to the only college-level Aerospace Manufacturing Technology program in the state and works closely with the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility located just minutes away in New Orleans East.
Many Nunez Aerospace grads have gone on to work at Michoud, assembling NASA and Boeing’s SLS (Space Launch System), the largest rocket ever built to carry humans.
