Established 2013 | Website www.supernova.eso.org | |
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Location Garching bei München, Germany Type Planetarium, Exhibition Centre Public transit access Garching-Forschungszentrum (Munich U-Bahn),Ismaning (bus 230),Oberschleißheim Sonnenstraße (bus 292), Neufahrn bei Freising (bus 690) Similar European Southern Observatory, Paranal Observatory, La Silla Observatory, Cerro Armazones, Atacama Large Millimeter | ||
The star roof hovers over the eso supernova planetarium visitor centre
The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is an astronomy centre located at the site of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Headquarters in Garching bei München, currently under construction. It is scheduled to open in Spring 2018 and offers free access to exhibitions, guided tours and planetarium shows that feature observations made by the telescopes of the European Southern Observatory.
Contents
- The star roof hovers over the eso supernova planetarium visitor centre
- Organisation
- Science campus Garching
- The architecture
- Planetarium
- Exhibitions
- References
Organisation
The building is a donation from the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS) and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) which ESO accepted in December 2013. It is operated and managed by the European Southern Observatory.
Science campus Garching
The ESO Supernova Planetarum & Visitor Centre is located at the Science Campus Garching. The campus is home to the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich and the Technical University of Munich, in addition to more than 80 independent scientific institutions and international science companies and 6 000 staff members and 14 000 students. The work here covers fundamental research as well as high-tech developments.
The architecture
The visitor centre was designed by the architects Bernhardt + Partner, which have already designed the Haus der Astronomie, a centre for astronomy education and outreach. The design of the ESO Supernova resembles that of a close double-star system with one star transferring mass to its companion. This set-up will ultimately lead to the heavier component exploding as a supernova, briefly becoming as bright as the light of all the stars in the Milky Way combined.
Planetarium
The visitor centre hosts a 14-metre diameter, tilted planetarium dome, able to accommodate up to 110 visitors. The centre will display planetarium shows produced by external producers and original shows produced by ESO. The fulldome material that ESO is developing for ESO Supernova is available to other planetariums for free, released under the Creative Commons 4.0 License. It will be available together with subtitles and narration translated into several languages.
Exhibitions
The ESO Supernova contains 2200 m² of exhibition space which is used for both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibition, designed by the company design und mehr, is called The Living Universe. The 13 themes of the exhibition present concepts of general astronomy, life in the Universe, and on how celestial objects are studied using modern telescopes and technologies. Using hands-on exhibits, digital interactives, videos and audio installations visitors can investigate all scientific topics in modern astrophysics. On every single stations visitors can choose the level on how deep they want to delve into the topic. All informations are also explained in a special kids-level. The exhibition also caters to teachers and educators by including educational concepts from school curricula, allowing teachers to use parts of the exhibition to support and enhance the way in which they cover the school curricula. The exhibition also includes a small modern 3D cinema that shows 3D and 2D movies in English and German.