boston planetarium reopens after $9m renovation - star projector

BOSTON (AP)-
Boston's skyline has shrunk and was soon replaced by blue.
The green sphere on Earth.
When the Earth enters the rearview mirror, the moon will have a gray and ominous scene, but it will also quickly retreat into a tiny light spot.
Soon, new visitors
The refurbished Charles Hayden Planetarium will leave the solar system on their virtual spacecraft to travel fasterthan-
Look for the speed of light of other planets in the Milky Way.
Of course, they did so without leaving their seats.
The 52-year-
The old Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science has pinned its future on a $9 million cosmetic success. The museum hopes to instill in a new generation a sense of awe about the beauty of the universe.
After more than a year of renovations, the planetarium has renovated complex new equipment and reopened to the public on Sunday, holding the world premiere of the "unknown world: search outside the Sun.
"Popular live news: Tony Award deadly crane collapse trophy hunting documentary Women's World Cup known as the state-of-the-art digital theater in New England, the planetarium uses a powerful new star projector-
It's called Zeiss Star-
57 at the Planetarium-
Foot dome ceiling of over 9,000 celestial bodies
From nearby bright stars to distant dark galaxies
All those who are so realistic may forget that it is not heaven on a clear night.
Darryl Davis proudly said: "You can bring the binoculars here and look at the same objects and they look like they are in the real sky, "the planetarium system coordinator and the person who manages the star Masters, one of the only two star masters in the United States.
The optical fiber video projection and animation system not only creates the illusion of crossing space, but also creates the illusion of crossing time.
"We have been trapped on Earth all the time.
We can never travel in the universe, "said David Rabkin, director of contemporary science and technology at the museum, describing the difference between what tastes like
Past Planetarium and more static Planetarium.
The most in recent years Planetarium of years average visit number about for 185,000 people lower than years average visit Number of 260,000 people.
From 1990 to 2003, according to the museum.
The aging technology of planetarium is considered to be a factor in the decline, and the competition of other ticket venues in the museum and the reduction of school field visits are also a factor.
The museum is expected to increase visitors to around 235,000 next year.
The first new show was created under the guidance of Alan Letterman, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is the best --
Sell 1992 novel "Einstein's dream"
Letterman said in an interview that he was trying to quickly present complex
Change science in a way that ordinary people can understand.
"Science is not like the Ten Commandments.
It was not passed down thousands of years ago and is now happening. "Said Letterman.
Nothing in astronomy is faster than searching for "exoplanets" that exist outside our solar system.
The outer planets of the solar system are too small to be seen by conventional telescopes and can only be found through hard scientific exploration.
Astronomers look for a slight "jitter" of a star caused by gravitational traction, or for the "light curve" that occurs when the orbit of a planet passes in front of its star ".
NASA announced earlier this month that its operating Kepler telescope found 1,235 possible planets outside the solar system.
This represents a huge jump in about 500 exoplanets since the discovery of the first exoplanet 15 years ago.
"Undiscovered Worlds" use animations to simulate how these alien worlds might appear for the audience.
A planet, known as Koro B _ B, runs around its stars in a time equivalent to 20 earth hours, possibly with a surface of lava, the other is that the unfriendly gas is comparable to Neptune near our sun.
But at least a few are believed to be Earth.
Like temperate planets, they are neither too close nor too far from the stars, which increases the tempting possibility that they have life --
It may even be smart life.
Officials at the Science Museum hope that the rejuvenated Planetarium will stimulate the interest of a new generation of tourists and encourage nostalgic parents who visit the facility in their childhood to come back with their children or grandchildren.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has contributed to the planetarium's fundraising efforts.
As a child in nearby Medford, the quality grows as a regular visitor to the museum.
Bloomberg is one of the guests of the new exhibition on Thursday.
"He was really influenced by this museum and he liked it very much," Rabkin said . ".