Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Gates Planetarium

I recently attended two shows in the Gates Planetarium as well as the astronomy exhibits at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. In the planetariums' dome-shaped theater I watched the wonderful films "Cosmic Collisions," narrated by Robert Redford, and "Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity," narrated by Liam Neeson. Both shows use cutting edge computer graphics technology and projection techniques to give you not only a visually compelling story, but one that is accurate to the smallest detail in the information as well as in the graphics.

Cosmic Collisions discussed many of the larger impacts that we are aware of in our earlier solar system's formation. Collisions such as the cataclysmic crash into the Earth that some scientists believe formed the Moon, as well as a major collision that has yet to happen and may never even be witnessed by a single human eye. The collision that I am speaking about, of course, is the great collision of our beautiful galaxy the Milky Way with our neighboring sister galaxy Andromeda that should take place in about two billion years.

While these dancing galaxies were on the show entitled Cosmic Collisions, aside from the galaxies appearing to collide into each other from a view of many light years away, there will not me very much actual crashing or colliding. Given the amazingly vast distances between stars there should be sufficient space for them to squeeze between each other without actually smashing into one another. Over millions of years the two galaxies will form into one new much larger galaxy.

The film was a feast for the eyes engulfing the senses in a panoramic view of the cosmos, with explosions shaking the very seat you sit in. One such explosion that shook the planetarium was when a planetesimal the size of Mars crashed into the very young Earth. This catastrophic impact sent a colossal amount of debris from the Earth and the crashing object into an orbit around the Earth. After about a week these elements coalesced and collapsed down into large chunks with the total Moon being formed in about a month.

The film also talked about the importance of the moon and where the Earth would be without it. Earth is unique in the inner solar system in that it has a great moon. Mercury and Venus have no moons and Mars has 2 asteroid sized objects orbiting it. Our moon helps in stabilizing the tilt of the axis to give us the seasons necessary for life to sustain on our watery haven.

There are monsters lurking all throughout the universe, even within our own Solar System, from which nothing escapes. I am speaking of the unimaginably powerful gravitational effect of a black hole. The film Black Holes began with a few kayakers riding some rapids and suddenly a drop comes up that almost makes you fall from your seat. The drop is heading them down a black hole of water, explaining the event horizon equivalent to the edge of the waterfall for the kayaker. It's the point of no return for any object caught within the grasp of the immense gravity.

Backing up the timescale before the black hole begins to prey on the solar neighborhood, we get to see firsthand a stars death. With amazing visuals and teeth-rattling bass that throws you back in your seat a supernova rips through the calm of the darkness, this death of a star and subsequent birth leaves behind the particular black hole we see destroying everything at whim. This gave us an idea of how black holes are formed but next we got to see one in particular that everyone can relate to.

The film discussed the eccentric orbits noticed of a few stars orbiting a point near the constellation Sagittarius. The only way scientists could explain the irregular orbits was with the immense gravitational pull of a black hole sitting in the middle. Today we know this area of our nighttime sky to be the center of our solar system and home to the super massive black hole that drives the motion all around us.

Continuing my journey throughout the museum I stopped at a little kiosk with information on our closest star, Sol. I was able to look at the sun, without permanent damage, at differing wavelengths showing different characteristics in each photo. My personal favorite was the ultraviolet sun, glowing lime green, bright yellow, and neon blue depending upon the wavelength you were viewing it at (in nm's) with solar flares shooting up in lighter, almost white colors. Another great picture of the sun comes in the X-ray wavelength which originate from the Sun's corona. This picture shows the great intricacies of the coronal loops and solar flares.

Another interesting exhibit gave me a demonstration on how the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mission will help us as we strive to land on the moon again and go so far as to build a lunar outpost. One of the many important aspects of this mission lie in the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), which will map the surface of the moon in ultraviolet light. While searching for ice in the polar regions this method will give us views of eternally dark areas that only receive light from stars eons away. An additional instrument on the LRO is the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) which will aide LAMP and produce a high resolution 3-D image of the lunar surface. Together these instruments will help us in determining the safest area to land as well as any available resources, ultimately helping us achieve our goal of landing a person on the moon again by 2020. To give up on getting to the moon and spreading our existence beyond our solar system condemns us to die on Earth, eliminates chances for finding intelligent beings yet unbeknownst to humans, and kills even the smallest child's hopes of one day stepping onto an almost zero gravity surface. We must always pursue knowledge through our curiosity because, "somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." -Carl Sagan