Quench your innate human curiosity and desire to explore while discovering our solar system and the universe beyond. Signature exhibits include self-navigated virtual tours that will highlight high resolution imagery of our galaxy and dramatic examples of bizarre galactic phenomena captured by NASA. A light-lock entrance into the gallery leads you into the abyss of the unknown. Exploring space invites us to investigate our constantly evolving understanding of the cosmos of which we are a part.

Exploring the Milky Way

Visitors can choose to explore a realistically-rendered digital universe, using a joystick to navigate their way from Earth outward through the galaxy, stopping to explore a black hole, a supernova, and several of the fascinating nebulae in which stars are born.

Visitors can also navigate outside the Milky Way and look back at its spiral shape and glowing, bulging center.

For a more contemplative experience, a variety of pre-programmed voyages will be available, with narration or music.

Exploring Mars

A split core extracted from the ocean bottom is mounted horizontally against a large graphic panel. Rails above and  below the core guide a sliding, touch screen monitor containing speakers along the core's length. Two smaller casts of ice cores are also displayed with graphic interpretation.

Sliding the monitor along the ocean core’s length (laid left to right chronologically) visitors see a moderately magnified view of the sedimentary layers.

Earth Environment

Visitors view an ever-changing collection of moving and still imagery that creates an impressionistic portrait of Earth, as seen from space, based on data and images since the inception of the space program.

Imagery may include weather patterns, river deltas, deserts, glaciers, mountains, coasts, oceans, plankton bloom, and cities.

Apollo Moon Landing

Visitors select from a menu of dramatic images by Apollo astronauts, organized by category (Landing on the Moon, Collecting Moon Rocks, Riding Rovers, Lunar Humor) to view some of the remarkable footage taken by Apollo astronauts on the surface of the Moon. 

Narration will be provided by astronauts and scientists working in space sciences today.

Crater Making Interactive

Prototype testing used a paintball gun to propel projectiles into a test bed at high velocity. A high speed motion analyzer shows the impact and resulting crater.

Visitors have a chance to make their own crater by firing a laser guided projectile into a powder bed. 

On an adjacent video monitor, they can watch a high speed video of their crater impact, controlling the speed of playback by turning a control knob.

Multi-Wavelenth Viewer

While sitting at an observing station, participants explore a projected image of the night sky. The section of sky being explored is marked with a box that moves over the large projected image. Each station has its own box on the large projected image.

Visitors can pan across the sky, zooming in on objects which they can then view in various wavelengths.

Solar System Formation

This low, circular projection surface is viewable from all sides.  On the screen, visitors will view a strikingly beautiful, 2-3 minute computer-generated animation that recounts the story of how the Solar System formed, and revealing the common ancestry of all the worlds within it.

The video will be narrated by an astronaut, research scientist or engineer involved in space science.

Through the Explorer's Eyes

A  glowing assemblage of magnificent, real images – galaxies, nebulae, supernovae, cosmic background radiation – taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and other remote explorers such as the Spitzer Infrared Observatory, are presented in a visually dramatic exhibit.

Solar Projection Table

Visitors use a joystick to move forward and backward through time, watching the progress of sunspots across the face of the Sun. The Sun can be viewed as a visible light, X-Ray or UV image by pressing the three buttons on the control panel.

New images of the Sun are added automatically on a daily basis so visitors can see images of recent sun spot activity.