UW Planetarium Schedule Expands During May

While the spring semester is winding down, the University of Wyoming Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium is amping up its offerings during May.

“This month, we are expanding our schedule to include three extra programs each week,” says Max Gilbraith, the planetarium’s coordinator. 

The May lineup will include Wyoming Skies constellation talks on even-numbered Tuesdays; Dome Club interactive dome time on Thursdays; live science talks on Fridays; educational films on Saturday afternoons and evenings; and music shows Friday and Saturday evenings.

To get tickets or receive more information about programs, email planetarium@uwyo.edu or leave a voicemail and a call-back phone number at (307) 766-6506. Tickets are $5 for the public or online tickets, and $3 for students, senior citizens, veterans, first responders and those under 18. Seating is free for children under 5. Bulk tickets/gift cards are available at $2 each when 10 or more tickets are purchased.

Reservations or pre-purchase is not required, and walk-ins are welcome. Tickets can be purchased online with a credit card, reserved by email or voicemail, or purchased at the start of the show. Cash or check is accepted at the door. The planetarium, which seats 64, is in the basement of the Physical Sciences Building. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis outside of designated ADA/wheelchair seating.

To pay for tickets with a credit card, go to www.uwyo.edu/uwplanetarium/ticket.aspx. For a group larger than six, email the planetarium for a private show at https://uwyo.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bKuqIynOn7gFK2F. Tickets for private shows are the same as the public programs.

A film and special live talk for audiences will be featured each week. All programs are approximately an hour in length. As time allows, a portion of the show also may focus on a live sky tour or supporting information related to the film’s topic.

The May schedule is:

-- Friday, May 2, 7 p.m.: “Leftovers! Asteroids, Comets, Meteors and Rings.” From a young age, we learn about the eight major planets. But what about everything else in the solar system, including bright meteor streaks in the sky, fireballs, comet tails and craters? Space missions have just begun exploring the asteroid Bennu and comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. What is NASA doing to learn about and defend Earth from these celestial curiosities?

-- Friday, May 2, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Retro Rock,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” retro rock music from artists in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K-resolution planetarium sky will become a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Saturday, May 3, 2 p.m.: “The Sun: Our Living Star,” a full-dome movie. The sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all of the planets combined. Viewers will discover the secrets of the sun and experience never-before-seen images of its violent surface.

-- Saturday, May 3, 7 p.m.: “Sunstruck!,” a full-dome movie. Travel back to the beginning of time and experience the birth of the sun. Discover how it came to support life; how it threatens life as we know it; and how its energy will one day fade away.

-- Saturday, May 3, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Taylor Swift,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of music from all eras of Taylor Swift in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K-resolution planetarium sky will become a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Tuesday, May 6, 7 p.m.: “Wyoming Skies: eta Auqariids Meteor Shower.” The program provides an exploration of the stars, constellations, planets, meteor showers and other celestial phenomena visible from Wyoming for the season. After the planetarium show finishes at 8 p.m., informal telescope observing on the rooftop of the Physical Sciences Building at the STAR Observatory will be available, weather permitting.

-- Friday, May 9, 7 p.m.: “Hotter Than the Sun: The Atomic Age.” Physicists and astrophysicists were set loose to develop nuclear weapons and energy in the first half of the 20th century. This program will go beyond the headlines of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban missile crisis, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. It will explore the history of nuclear weapons testing, power generation and the modern risks and benefits of technology that either harness or unleash energy hotter than the sun.

-- Friday, May 9, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: The Beatles,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” pop music from the legendary British band in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K resolution planetarium sky melts and becomes a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Saturday, May 10, 2 p.m.: “Back to the Moon for Good,” a full-dome movie. This film opens with the first era of space exploration in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Viewers will learn what that era of landers and orbiters taught the world about the moon.

-- Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m.: “Dark Matter Mystery,” a full-dome movie. Dark matter is a theoretical form of invisible mass, which is believed to be present in galaxies but has never been seen or detected. This film takes the audience on the biggest quest of contemporary astrophysics: solving the dark matter mystery.

-- Saturday, May 10, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Metal,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” metal music from top artists in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K resolution planetarium sky melts and becomes a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Friday, May 16, 7 p.m.: “Aurorae: Dancing Lights.” For millennia, our ancestors looked in awe at the “dawn in the North,” better known as the Aurora Borealis. What causes this display in the sky? Where does it occur? Do other planets have aurorae? A tour from the surface of the sun out to the magnetic poles of the solar system will help attendees learn the answers.

-- Friday, May 16, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Tranquility,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” music from top artists in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K resolution planetarium sky melts and becomes a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Saturday, May 17, 2 p.m.: “Forward! To the Moon,” a full-dome movie. Narrator Kari Byron, from “Crash Test World” and “MythBusters,” takes viewers on a journey beyond Earth toward a sustainable future in space. NASA’s 21st century Artemis program is the next step in the mission to explore the universe and land the first woman and person of color on the moon. This film is produced by Fiske Planetarium in collaboration with Tend Studio.

-- Saturday, May 17, 7 p.m.: “Distant Worlds: Alien Life,” a full-dome movie. This film takes viewers on a journey outward to see what it takes for life to develop, starting with life on Earth and moving out to the rest of our solar system and on to alien planets that orbit distant stars in our galaxy. 

-- Saturday, May 17, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Pop,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” pop music from top artists in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K resolution planetarium sky melts and becomes a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Tuesday, May 20, 7 p.m.: “Wyoming Skies: Moon, Mars, Venus Conjunction.” The program provides an exploration of the stars, constellations, planets, meteor showers and other celestial phenomena visible from Wyoming for the season. After the planetarium show finishes at 8 p.m., informal telescope observing on the rooftop of the Physical Sciences Building at the STAR Observatory will be available, weather permitting.

-- Friday, May 23-Monday, May 26: The planetarium will be closed for Memorial Day weekend.

-- Friday, May 30, 7 p.m.: “Parker Solar Probe.” On a mission to “touch the sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona -- the sun’s upper atmosphere -- in 2021. With every orbit bringing it closer, the probe faces brutal heat and radiation to provide humanity with unprecedented observations of the only star that can be studied up close.

-- Friday, May 30, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Rhythm and Blues,” a music-based light show. Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” rhythm and blues music from top artists in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K resolution planetarium sky melts and becomes a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

-- Saturday, May 31, 2 p.m.: “Two Small Pieces of Glass,” a full-dome movie. Learn the history of the telescope, from Galileo’s modifications to a child’s spyglass -- using two small pieces of glass -- to the launch of the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope and the future of astronomy.

-- Saturday, May 31, 7 p.m.: “One Sky,” a full-dome series of short films. Each short film represents the perspective of a different culture or Indigenous society from around the globe. Each film stands alone as a short story, or in combination, as a longer narrative organized around themes of “finding patterns” and developing tools. Short films are “The Forge of Artemis,” “Thunderbird,” “Jai Singh’s Dream,” “Celestial Canoe,” “The Samurai and Stars” and “Wayfinders.”

-- Saturday, May 31, 8:30 p.m.: “Liquid Sky: Indie Folk” Enjoy a custom playlist of “out-of-this-world” folk music in 5.1 surround sound. The 4K-resolution planetarium sky will become a canvas of color, patterns and movement with cutting-edge music visualization software and live VJ talent.

For more detailed descriptions of all programs, go to www.uwyo.edu/physics/planetarium/schedule.html.