ann18029 — Announcement

New Planetarium Show: The Planets

Expedition into the Solar System

31 October 2018

The ESO Supernova is proud to announce a new show in its line-up. The Planets — Expedition into the Solar System, jointly created by 19 planetariums in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, including the ESO Supernova, explores the planets of our Solar System close-up. The music for the new show was written by the composer Frank Wolff. The Planets — Expedition into the Solar System will be shown in the ESO Supernova planetarium from 30 November 2018.

In recent years, space probes from different space agencies have explored other Solar System planets, such as Mars and Jupiter, so we already know what astronauts could experience there. But human explorers have not yet actually visited any of these worlds and it will be a long time before anybody has the chance to do so. In the new planetarium show The Planets — Expedition into the Solar System you will travel out and experience these places as the space travellers of the future will see them.

Come closer than ever to Earth’s distant siblings and explore landscapes that seem like fantasy worlds but actually exist. Explore the mighty valleys and volcanoes of Mars, visit a comet and dive into Jupiter’s swirling gas clouds! Cross Saturn’s rings, and venture out to the icy dwarf planet Pluto at the very edge of the Solar System!

The new visuals used in the show were gathered by remote-controlled space probes. Images used are from: NASA’s Cassini, which examined Saturn's rings and ice moons; ESA’s Rosetta which landed on a comet for the first time; and NASA's New Horizons spacecraft which observed Pluto more closely than ever before. Together with many other spacecraft, in the last three to ten years these probes have investigated the surfaces of the celestial bodies in the Solar System in great detail.

More information

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is a cooperation between the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS). The building is a donation from the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS), a German foundation, and ESO runs the facility.