Special exhibit featuring many interactive and multimedia components set to open Feb. 1 at the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Where did we come from? Are we alone? The Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Va. will help visitors better understand these age-old questions and more when it unveils the special exhibit “Alien Earths” on February 1. The exhibit will be on display through April 30.
“Alien Earths”, developed by the Space Science Institute, in Boulder, Colorado, addresses several issues that scientists continue to ponder. The exhibit addresses how what we know about life on Earth can inform the search for life beyond Earth, what type of intelligent life in space is most likely to be found, how life alters its environment, and what to look and listen for when searching for intelligent life.
The exhibit guides visitors through four interrelated clusters of interactive components and multi-media presentations: “Our Place in Space,” “Star Birth,” “Planet Quest” and “Search for Life.” Through these four areas, visitors compare the life cycle of our Sun to other stars, set planets in motion around a star, experiment with an infrared camera and ordinary objects, feel the difference in density between three known planets, explore the methods used to search for extra solar planets, learn about the most abundant life form on Earth, and possibly elsewhere-microbes, smell the difference between various microbial colonies and listen to sounds from space and find out what signals from intelligent beings might sound like.
The first area, “Our Place in Space”, provides a representation of the area we are searching beyond our solar system, which is actually a very small part of the Milky Way galaxy when compared to its overall size.
In the “Star Birth” area, visitors learn that there are different types of stars and that each has a life cycle predominantly determined by its mass. Many interactive components, including a touch screen, infrared cameras, pressure pumps, and others allow visitors to understand how stars and star regions are formed, the composition of planets, how planet families interact, and how our solar system compares to other recently discovered solar systems.
Until very recently, the only planets scientists had discovered were all within our solar system. Components in “Planet Quest” allow visitors to examine the ingenious methods that scientists have developed for searching for planets that we cannot see or reach by spacecraft. With five separate stations that include interactive components, such as a 3-D atlas and mural, visitors get a glimpse at the kinds of methods scientists use to learn about planets from unreachable distances.
What we know about life on Earth informs our search for life beyond Earth. When scientists search for evidence of intelligent life forms, what do they look and listen for? The “Search for Life” area shows that our planet’s most abundant life form is the microbe. Through seven separate stations, which include an array of multimedia components, visitors can understand what types of methods scientists currently use in the search for life beyond Earth.
Alien Earths is sponsored by Patrick Henry Community College. For more information about this special exhibit, or for more information regarding the Virginia Museum of Natural History, please visit www.vmnh.net <http://www.vmnh.net> or call 276-634-4141.
Funding for “Alien Earths” has been provided by the National Science Foundation and the Kepler, Navigator, and Spitzer NASA missions. Additional support comes from NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and SETI Institute.
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