Summer Field Trips and Visits

Our planetarium show begins with a look around our local area at the James E. Richmond Science Center. We look to the sky to see the Sun, our closest star, which provides just about all of the energy that we have available on Earth. We watch the Sun travel from East to West across the daytime sky, and discuss the changing length of daylight hours between the seasons.

After sunset we identify the Moon and any planets that are visible during twilight, and briefly discuss how to see them. As night falls we locate the Big Dipper, an asterism in the northern sky, formed by the seven brightest stars in our nighttime sky. We show how use the Big Dipper to always be able to find your way North, by pointing to the North Star, Polaris. From Polaris, we easily locate the Little Dipper constellation.

We re-identify the Big Dipper and Little Dipper as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, and transition from astronomy to astrology by showing the mythological images of the Great Bear and Baby Bear, and recount the mythological story of how they got into the sky, and why their tails became so long.

All of the constellations visible from the Northern Hemisphere are then displayed and identified, and their mythological images are presented. Additional mythological stories may be added at this time.

We leave our Earthly view of the heavens and launch to the red planet, Mars, our neighbor in space. On the way we discuss the upcoming human missions to Mars: why we’re going and who will go. Next we visit the most beautiful planet, Saturn, and revel in the beauty of Saturn’s magnificent rings. We return closer to home to see our Moon, and discuss our past and future missions there. We return to orbit the Blue Marble, our home planet. We view Earth from both the daylight and nighttime sides, and slice the planet open to view it’s four main layers: the crust, mantle, outer core and inner core. We identify the core as being made of the three magnetic metals: nickel, iron and cobalt; and discuss the reason that Earth has a North Pole and South Pole. We show the incredible magnetic field surrounding Earth, the Magnetosphere, created by the magnetic core of our planet.

Our planetarium sky show concludes with a magical fireworks exhibition, to celebrate our successful return to Earth.