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The Liberty Science Center in nearby Jersey City, NJ has a ton to do for kids and families. They recently opened the Largest Planetarium in the Western Hemisphere- not too shabby, ay?
“Its diameter is almost twice as long as a bowling alley lane. Its screen is taller than four giraffes. It offers a true 8K projection. Its lights produce trillions of colors. And it will provide breaking space and astronomy news and discoveries in real time.
It is Liberty Science Center’s greatest experience yet–the largest and most technologically advanced planetarium in the entire Western Hemisphere. The only three that are bigger are in Beijing, China, and Nagoya and Niihama, Japan.”
Liberty Science Center, the largest interactive science center in the NY-NJ metropolitan area, officially opened the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium on December 9, 2017.
The kids had an amazing time watching the live show in the domed theater. The seats we were in were pretty high up, but you can choose seats closer to the ground should you want to. The speaker used a laser pointer to show different stars and constellations in the sky, and made the sun rise and set as you watched in just a few seconds. He was also able to zoom in and out of very specific locations- one of which being the science center itself. You and your kids can see the stars at different times of the year as the speaker zooms around and gives explanations of each constellation.
“You can fit any other planetarium in the Western Hemisphere inside the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium,” said Hoffman. “Add in the state-of-the-art technology and you have a spectacular unique theater like none other in the world. Visitors will be able to fly through the universe, experience the grandness and vastness of space, roam planetary surfaces, navigate asteroid fields, and watch the latest full-dome movies.”
Other unique features of the Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium include:
• A dome that has a diameter of 27 meters, or about 89 feet. That means if you made a straight line from one end of the dome to the other, it would be 1.5 times the length of a bowling alley lane.
• From the bottom of the theater to the top of the dome screen is 60 feet, the same height as 4 giraffes.
• 588 perforated aluminum panels are seamlessly joined together to form the domed screen with a surface area of 1,145 square meters, or 12,345 square feet. That’s a nice size four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in terms of area.
• The 10-projector system features an 8K resolution of 88 million pixels.
• The sophisticated software allows for downloads of the latest animations and images from NASA to keep up with breaking science news.
• The lighting system can produce over 281 trillion individual colors, which can allow the planetarium dome to look like the blue Earth daytime sky, the red sky of Mars, or a rapidly changing pattern to enhance laser shows. A human can see about 10 million colors, while a computer screen displays about 16.8 million colors for a “full-color” image.
• In addition to out-of-this-world planetarium experiences, guests will also enjoy immersive 8K films on the wraparound dome screen courtesy of a brand new digital projection system.
Also available is the new rotating exhibition, Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience.
“In this interactive, immersive exhibition based on one of the world’s most popular sci-fi series, you’ll step into the shoes of a newly minted cadet in the 26th century. As you travel through nine different zones, you’ll receive the necessary science, engineering, medical, and command training to navigate your way from orientation through graduation.
Both Trekkies and non-Trekkies will be engaged by the science behind the science fiction. Learn how Star Trek paved the way for many of today’s cutting-edge technologies—such as a functional tricorder, NASA’s warp drive theory, and experiments involving phasers and teleporters—and even get a glimpse into the future of Star Trek science.”
Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience will be at LSC through May 28, 2018.
If you would like to win a 4 pack of tickets, please just leave your name and email in the comments below. Ends Feb. 20, 2018. Thanks!
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I would give this to my daughter and grandson. I’m not sure who they would invite to join them – probably her new friend whose son is about the same age as my grandson. I think they would all have a blast.