WISE sponsors Planetarium visit

Matt Linke, the UM Exhibit Museum's Planetarium Director, took students to the edge of the universe and back during a WISE-sponsored dinner and visit as part of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts' 'The Universe: Yours to Discover" theme semester.

The after-hours event included about 25 undergraduate and graduate students who shared dinner and socialized before heading into the Planetarium for a show with the new a state-of-the-art digital, all-dome projection system.

In addition to pointing out constellations that appear in the night sky at this time of year and describing the myths of origin behind many of these constellations, Matt was able to "fly" the audience out into to space to show planetary orbits in our solar system, our solar system's position in our galaxy, and our galaxy's position in the universe. With this clear and realistic visualization of all of the mapped galaxies in the known universe, the words "small and insignificant" took on a new meaning.

The planetarium in the Exhibit Museum hosts many pre-college school visits throughout the school year, and is open to the public (public show schedule: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/exhibitmuseum/programs/planetarium/schedule). One of our graduate student participants said, "This was on my list of things to visit before I leave UM. I'm so glad I came."

April 2009 eNews

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