Scientists peg our universe at 13.7 billion years old, but that unthinkable time span obscures a fact: The course of a galaxy can change in a nanosecond when worlds collide.
The violent, explosive origins of familiar celestial bodies are exquisitely rendered in the new “Cosmic Collisions” show, premiering today at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Gates Planetarium. It employs cutting-edge technology and research to bring the heavens’ biggest bangs to life.
“Cosmic Collisions” illustrates in vivid 3-D the dynamics of asteroid impacts, the heart of our sun, the birth of our moon and the death of the dinosaurs. Robert Redford’s avuncular voice guides us through the stunning computer-generated images and provides context. It’s an overall triumph of educational entertainment.
The show’s producers hope it will have a deep impact on the way we think about the skies in particular, and planetarium shows in general.
“In previous shows we’ve emphasized the size and structure and nature of the universe. In other words, the architecture,” said Michael Shara, curator of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “What we’re trying to get across here is the evolution. Collisions are to astrophysics what selection is to biology – the driving force.”
Whether they occur on a time scale of trillionths of a second, like the nuclear fusion at the center of the sun, or billions of years, in the end it’s the collisions that shape much of existence.
Shara likened his role in “Cosmic Collisions” to a Hollywood producer, helming the theme and content of the show and making sure it was scientifically correct. His museum partnered with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, among others, to lead the way in developing new technologies to animate outer space.
“We have a digital catalog of much of the universe, with millions of stars and planets, and the best 3-D model possible of the Milky Way galaxy itself,” Shara said. “It’s a kind of enormous Yellow Pages of the universe. We can pull various pieces and then move through it in real time by choosing a vector and a velocity.”
If that all sounds a little technical, take heart that the results are comfortingly familiar. “Cosmic Collisions” and the planetarium itself are designed to inspire and teach, not confuse.
Built in 1968, the Gates Planetarium has undergone several major updates, including one in 2003. It’s one of the most technologically advanced in the world. Forget about neck cramps: The 56-foot dome is tilted at a 25-degree angle, letting viewers sit comfortably upright. Overlapping digital projectors run by a supercomputer spring to life with a 20-channel, 3-D spatial sound system. The so-called fulldome format is immersive in nearly every way.
“There’s a real concerted effort to make it a cinematic experience,” said Dan Neafus, operations manager at Gates Planetarium. “It’s amazing that there’s a tool to take all this abstract research that only one scientist understands and turn it into something that can be shared.”
Early planetariums projected pinpricks of light through curved balls to simulate stars. That’s a far cry from “Cosmic Collisions,” which overlays photographs onto computer models to portray unimaginably large events. Our moon, for example, was likely created 4.5 billion years ago when a Mars-sized object smashed into the young, molten Earth. It took less than a month for the ensuing debris to coalesce into what we now see.
“In 30 years I’ve seen astrophysics go from pen and pencil drawings to these amazingly lifelike 3-D renderings, and those still require thousands of hours of supercomputer time,” said Shara. “But we can show you with remarkable fidelity what these events must have looked like.”
Neafus hopes “Cosmic Collisions” will help kids – the majority of his audience – to better understand the cosmos’ awesome creative and destructive forces. And, he hopes, inspire a generation of scientists and engineers.
“When you use scientific tools to shrink time or analyze what’s going on, you realize there’s an awful lot of cool stuff happening out there.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Cosmic Collisions
PLANETARIUM SHOW|Gates Planetarium, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd.; various times daily, today-May 30|$4-$15| 303-322-7009 or dmns.org.
