Planetarium Programs
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One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure
Explore the night sky with your favorite friends from Sesame Street in One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure. Follow along with Big Bird, Elmo and their friend from China, Hu Hu Zhu, as they take an imaginary trip from Sesame Street to the moon, where they discover how different it is from Earth. They explore the day and night sky, learn about the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Sun and the Moon. Along the way, they learn how the sky we see is shared by many people around the world. Children attending the show can interact as they watch, drawing constellations and counting the time it takes the sun to set.
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Origins of Life
Tour the far reaches of the universe and our Earth as the evolution of life is examined in this fully immersive space experience. From the Big Bang to new life on Earth, from great extinctions to the search for life beyond our planet, Origins of Life is an inspirational journey through time and a celebration of life near and very, very far.
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Phantom of the Universe
From the journey of protons racing through the world’s largest particle collider to up-close views of the Big Bang and emergent universe, and the nearly mile-deep descent to an underground experiment, Phantom of the Universe immerses audiences in the search for dark matter. Explore this mysterious matter and how we are using discoveries at the Large Hadron Collider to get closer to discovering the true nature of Dark Matter. View the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term “dark matter.” Explore the astral choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda galaxy, and then plummet deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine. Speed alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound at Large Hadron Collider at CERN, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter. Executive Producer Michael Barnett of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory served as an advisor to PBS’s NOVA series Elegant Universe and the feature film Angels & Demons. Featuring narration by Academy-Award winning actress Tilda Swinton, Phantom of the Universe showcases imagery from CERN’s Media Lab.
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Polaris: The Space Submarine and the Mystery of Polar Night
A traveling penguin from the South Pole and a funny polar bear from the North pole meet on arctic sea ice. They become friends observing the night sky together and wondering why night is so long at the poles of the Earth. This mystery leads them on a scientific adventure by building an improvised spaceship to travel around the Earth to learn about seasons, visit Mars and Saturn to learn about ice in the solar system and how planets have similarities and differences which make them unique.
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Rising Star: A South African Astronomy Journey
Take an astronomical journey from our beginnings through the development of astronomy research in South Africa, and discover what the future of astronomy holds for the country. Dive into multi-wavelength and multi-messenger astronomy with the many remarkable facilities such as Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the most powerful radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, MeerKAT. See how astronomy can be a powerful force in the life of a nation, and inspire the next generation of explorers.
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Secret of the Cardboard Rocket
Join two children on a magical journey through the Solar System, aided by a talking astronomy book, a cardboard rocket, and a vivid imagination. During this imaginative show, audiences will land on Venus, fly through the rings of Saturn, and discover the secrets of the Solar System.
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Secrets of the Universe
Travel with scientist Manuel Calderon De La Barca Sanchez as he journeys to the largest machine ever built, the greatest scientific instrument ever created, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
There, he joins a global team working to uncover another amazing breakthrough in this new world of technology-driven physics. We get an inside look at the machine and come to understand just what it means to do science, teaming up for the flag of humanity to solve the universe’s greatest mysteries.
We don’t stop with the Large Hadron Collider, though. The machines we’ve built are as diverse as the secrets we’re looking for, and the people looking for them. We travel to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO), the amazing project that recently confirmed Einstein’s century old prediction of the existence of gravitational waves.
Humanity is at the edge of unprecedented scientific discovery, and we can all be a part of it!
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Solar Superstorms
A fury is building on the surface of the Sun – high-velocity jets, a fiery tsunami wave that reaches 100,000 kilometers high, rising loops of electrified gas. What’s driving these strange phenomena? How will they affect planet Earth? Find the answers as we venture into the seething interior of our star. Travel into the tangle of magnetic fields and superhot plasma that vent the Sun’s rage in dramatic flares, violent solar tornadoes, and the largest eruptions in the solar system: Coronal Mass Ejections. Explore how the Sun influences our lives on Earth in numerous ways in the modern age. The program is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch of Star Trek and Dr. Strange fame.
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Space Aliens: Looking for Life in the Universe
One of the oldest question’s humans have asked since looking at the sky has been if life exists beyond our planet. Follow cosmic clues from the ocean floor to a journey across the galaxy! What might extremophiles here on Earth tell us about the ability of life to thrive in other locations in our universe? Learn how new discoveries of exoplanets and water in our own solar system plays into this cosmic quest for other life forms beyond Earth. Find out how scientist are using new tools to look for places where life might be possible in our own galaxy.
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SPARK: The Universe in Us
From the oxygen we breathe to the uranium that warms our planet’s core, we owe everything to the stars. SPARK: The Universe in Us is about our deep connection not just to Earth, but to stars millions of light years away—and billions of years in the past. Discover the celestial origins of the elements we all have in common. Along the way, you’ll enter the core of a giant star just before it implodes, experience the quiet demise of a star like the Sun, and see how colliding stars seed the Universe with the building blocks of life. Narrated by Diego Luna.
For ages 12 and up!
