Kind of tricky getting it to levitate. Requires the power to be on for levitation, if the power is turned off there's a magnet in the base that should catch the globe, preventing it from rolling off your desk. Draws 4 watts, so around thirty-five cents per month in electricity usage to keep it levitating. Good detail on the moon's surface as it's printed in Germany (though made in China of course). If you start it spinning, it'll continue rotating for perhaps fifteen minutes at most before stopping.
Pretty good, and apparently the electronically controlled electromagnet underneath the spacecraft helps it continue rotating, but setting it up in several locations it NEVER spins continuously as advertised. I now have it the globe surface coated with thin fluorescent paint, accented with black lights, with a foot switch to control the lights plus a hidden mini-fan carefully positioned to make it spin. BTW, with the fan it spins at probably 50RPM, and even at that speed the electromagnetic mechanism always keeps the globe levitating, which is quite impressive.
Was looking for a lunar globe in particular, but wasn't sure about this one. The Voyager spacecraft looked kind of 'science nerd,' in the photos. And I wouldn't want to project the wrong impression given I'm a global warming denialist, a birther, and a big reason for this purchase was my longstanding efforts to expose the conspiracy behind the alleged 'lunar landings.' But returning to the subject at hand, the spacecraft is quite impressive given its simplicity. The core of the craft is molded into the top of the globe, and you get three arrays of senors/antennas to stick into the sides of the satellite. Also somewhat of a foolproof setup to insure you plug the right part into the right place.
Other:
No on/off control.
Includes advert/brochure, full page sized, showing all their other planet/satellite globe combos with a few details on each planet and its satellite observation mission.
Has the word 'Stellanova' imprinted halfway down the Southern hemisphere of the lunar surface.
Tested turning off the power and the magnet on the base grabs the globe MOST of the time, but doesn't always stop it from rolling away.
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