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Giant Worlds comprises three interrelated clusters of interactive components and multi-media presentations: Family of the Sun, Meet the Giants, and New Frontiers.
Family of the Sun
Visitors learn about the formation of our Solar System and the role that gravity plays in how planets, asteroids, and comets behave.
- Portraits of the Giants
Upon entering, visitors are greeted by spectacular images of the giant planets and their moons. Strange, eerie noises can be heard from Jupiter and Saturn, setting the mood of the exhibition.
| Gaint Worlds: A Voyage to the Outer Solar System opens October 2008. |
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- Tools of the Trade
Peering through a replica of Galileo’s telescope allows visitors to see Jupiter as Galileo saw it.
- Giant Worlds Are Giant
Scale models of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune appear before an illustration of our Solar System.
- Gravity Rules
Gravity is an attractive force in the formation of stars and solar systems. This full-bodyinteractive allows visitors to become “attractive bodies” projected on a screen. Virtual objects flow past, orbit, or stick to the players’ images, depending on the relative masses assigned to each object.
- Solar System Formation and Crash Course
Short videos show how solar systems form when clouds of interstellar gas and dust contract under the force of gravity and the early bombardment of Earth by icy objects from the region of the giant worlds. We may owe our existence to the water delivered by these giant ice balls.
| Our giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. |
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- Friend or Foe
By adjusting the position of one or more planets, and then setting it in motion in a simulated solar system, visitors try to get the icy bodies to collide with Earth.
Meet the Giants
In this area, visitors learn the basics about each of the giant planets—atmosphere, weather, seasons, magnetic environment—and how these compare with Earth.
- Planet Plunge
The giant planets are all atmosphere—there’s no solid surface to land on. Using electro-mechanical controls, visitors create and launch virtual probes into Jupiter’s enormous atmosphere to better understand the crushing pressures within a planet made of gas.
- Light Probe
Visitors interact with a telescope pointed at an area of Jupiter called the Great Red Spot. Like scientists, they turn a filter wheel to select various wavelengths of light that can be used to explore this large, Earth-sized feature.
- Seeing the Unseen
Visitors see their images captured by two different cameras—one in visible light and the other, infrared (IR). They can compare their images to Jupiter seen in the same wavelengths. IR is invisible to our eyes, but we can feel it as heat.
- Equatorial Bulge
Visitors turn a handle to spin two model planets. They can easily see that the equatorial bulge of one of the planets increases as the spin rate increases. Scientists observing this bulging from Earth can learn something about a distant planet’s internal mass distribution.
- Moon Dance
An electro-mechanical activity demonstrates flex heating on an object resulting from the push and pull of gravity. An audiovisual device illustrates resonance with an animation of several Galilean moons that periodically line up.
- Cosmic Light Show
Like Earth, the giant planets of our Solar System have magnetospheres and beautiful aurorae. A looping video presents images of spectacular aurorae on Earth in high-definition.
- Magnetic Attractions
Aurorae are caused by charged particles in a planet’s magnetosphere. These particles also move in very strange ways in a magnetic field. Visitors launch particles into Jupiter’s magnetosphere to light up Jupiter’s poles.
- Planet Rings
All four of the giant planets have rings. A video introduces the ring systems, their composition, and the role of shepherd moons. Spectacular images from the Cassini mission to Saturn are shown on a large video monitor.
- Extreme Seasons
The giant planet Uranus rotates around an axis that is parallel to the planet’s orbital plane around the Sun. In other words, Uranus is tipped over on its side, possibly as the result of a collision with a massive object. The planet’s extreme tilt results in extreme seasons. Visitors manipulate a virtual orrery—a device that illustrates the relative positions and motions of planets around our Sun—to better understand the reasons for seasons for both Earth and Uranus.
- Occultation
The dimming of starlight by objects passing in front of them is called occultation. Background light from a distant star can help scientists discover giant planet rings and learn about a giant planet’s atmosphere. This interactive device allows visitors to use this technique to discover invisible rings.
New Frontiers
Visitors take an immersive fantasy ride as if they are traveling in a space capsule to the giant planets. Visitors can also peer into the future of planetary exploration to see where scientists are looking for other giant worlds in solar systems beyond our own.
- Giant Worlds Odyssey
Visitors take a voyage of discovery on a futuristic spaceship to the outer Solar System and tour the giant worlds and their moons.
- Mission Teams
It takes many people playing different roles to make a space mission successful. Visitors see a photomural of the Juno mission team. Four “audio-light boxes” highlight the stories of four team members.
- What’s Next?
At a multimedia station, visitors learn that we are still planning missions to explore the outer Solar System, including the Juno mission to Jupiter and future missions to Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Titan.
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Giant Worlds: Exhibition floor plan |
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- Planet Challenge
Up to three visitors can play a Giant Worlds trivia game based on information presented in the exhibition
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