Stars, planets can be seen in high-resolution at big new planetarium
The sky is so big it makes superlatives seem superfluous. It’s dizzying in scope and it seems there’s always something new to explore.
But although the heavens sometimes make things on Earth seem a bit inconsequential, a New Jersey planetarium is not playing around, washingtonpost. com wrote.
Jersey City’s Liberty Science Center can now boast of having the Western hemisphere’s largest planetarium and the world’s fourth-biggest.
The science center’s Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium and Giant Dome Theater visualize the night sky at an astonishing 88 million-pixel resolution, barraging viewers with ultra-high-resolution views of the stars and planets, and it presents live shows that feature speakers capable of blasting 30,000 watts’ worth of sound. Among the highlights to be seen on the planetarium’s screen, which is 89 feet in diameter, is a visualization of the Orion nebula.
This region is visible to the naked eye on Earth, but it is worth viewing up close. It’s one of the Milky Way’s stellar nurseries — a place where dust and gas clump together to form baby stars in a wild cluster of formations.
The Orion nebula’s high-definition re-creation will be shown at the American Astronomical Society in Washington next year, and it’s worth a trip to Jersey City to get a preview.
Located near the Statue of Liberty, the planetarium is a reminder that although human achievements are impressive, the dazzling stars are far more so.