A Starry Tale

Discover a beautiful show that reveals how the constellations received their shape and names while tracking the movement of the moon and planets in the night sky. Mixing the constellations, astronomical knowledge and the religious faith, you will learn about the birth of the Greek myths, including the tale of Astraea, the goddess of justice, who is closely related to the constellation Libra. This starry tale will captivate using enchanting music and beautiful computer animations.

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Astronaut

What does it take to become an astronaut? Join us as we experience a rocket launch from inside the human body. Explore the amazing worlds of inner and outer space, from floating around the International Space Station to maneuvering through microscopic regions of the human body. Discover the perils that lurk in space as we subject our test astronaut, Chad, to everything space has to offer.

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Back to the Moon

The show opens with the first era of space exploration in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We see what that era of landers and orbiters taught us about our nearest neighbor including the discovery of the moon’s origin, composition, structure and the accessibility of raw materials on its surface.

The Google Lunar XPRIZE is introduced as the largest incentivized competition to date, designed to democratize space and create new opportunities for eventual human and robotic presence on the moon. We see the engineering and innovation steps taken by the internationally distributed teams competing to land a spacecraft on the moon and vie for additional prizes. We highlight the human spirit of competition and collaboration as teams take on this audacious challenge.

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Birth of Planet Earth

Birth of Planet Earth is a planetarium full-dome show that tells the twisted tale of our planet’s origins.

Scientists now believe that our galaxy is filled with solar systems, including up to a billion planets roughly the size of our own.

The film employs advanced, data-driven, cinematic-quality visualizations to explore some of the greatest questions in science today: How did Earth become a living planet in the wake of our solar system’s violent birth? What does its history tell us about our chances of finding other worlds that are truly earth-like?

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Black Holes

Black holes are the strangest objects in the universe and have been a fascination to mankind for nearly 100 years. Come explore these strange phenomena and take a breathtaking, fanciful tour into a black hole.

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Black Holes – The Other Side of Infinity

Prepare to be dazzled with striking, immersive animations of the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, the collision of giant galaxies and a simulated flight to a super-massive black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Narrated by Academy-Award nominated actor Liam Neeson, this cutting-edge production features high-resolution visualizations of cosmic phenomena, working with data generated by computer simulations, to bring the current science of black holes to the dome screen.

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Cell! Cell! Cell!

You are made of 70 trillion living cells. They work. They talk. They think. They are what make you alive. This is the story of how they do it.

Join Sooki and Raj on an adventure to explore the human body as they use a series of fantastic instruments to peer inside complex living cells. Uncover the mystery of DNA and discover how we all began as a single, tiny cell.

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Dawn of the Space Age

Relive the excitement of the early days of space exploration, from the launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik through the magnificent lunar landings and on to current manned and unmanned space voyages. Be immersed and overwhelmed with this accurate historic reconstruction of man’s first steps beyond the confines of Earth. This planetarium show recreates the adventures of modern explorers who took part in these death-defying endeavors. You will also witness their drive, passion and perseverance to explore. This spectacular show will make you feel as if you were there with them, reliving a piece of history.

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Edge of Darkness

Edge of Darkness is the latest full-dome movie produced by Evans & Sutherland. The film features amazing scenes of places never before seen gathered by key space missions that culminated with groundbreaking discoveries in 2015. It features a spectacular flight through the great cliffs of comet 67P, a close look at the fascinating bright lights on Ceres and the first-ever close ups of dwarf binary planet Pluto/Charon and its moons.

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Exoplanets: Worlds of Wonder

Using the latest data from multiple planet-hunting missions including Kepler, ExoPlanets: Worlds Of Wonder follows mankind’s first space probe as it journeys outside our solar system to the many new worlds astronomers are discovering beyond.

Explore gas giant planets caught in a deadly dance with their host stars and frozen rogue planets hurtling through space. Travel to molten, rocky worlds now known to science, and new planets orbiting within the Goldilocks Zone—the habitable region around a star where earth-like worlds may exist.

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Exploding Universe

As the universe has transformed into the structure we live in now, even the most elementary particles have endured. This show follows the path of one of these particles—a proton—as it participates in nature’s astounding events of rebirth and renewal.

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Explore

Explore is the latest production to continue the trend of bringing visual excellence under the dome to enhance the immersive experience of the public.

The story centers around the motives for human travel to Mars, but the show presents and explains a much broader selection of science including the history of astronomy, geocentric and heliocentric models and Kepler laws of planetary motion or orbital maneuvers.

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Faster Than Light

Faster Than Light explores the longstanding quest to develop spacecraft with enough power and speed to reach the stars. The film asks: What will it take to reach a newly discovered planet circling our sun’s nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri?

Based on real science and engineering, Faster Than Light takes audiences on a thrilling journey into the future aboard laser-driven space sails, antimatter engines, and warp drives right out of science fiction.

NOT available after October 31, 2024

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Hazelnuts: In Search of the Perfect Planet

Once upon a time, there were two squirrels, Nino and Lilli, who were ready to do anything to eat hazelnuts, and ready to do even more for super hazelnuts. One day they learn that there are indeed super hazelnuts on other worlds. Why should they carry on dreaming when they can go and get them?

‍Hazelnuts is a story of greediness, and two squirrels on a mission to get more hazelnuts. Along the way, they will learn about other planets.  If at first the connection between the two is not obvious, for Lilli it certainly is.

Travel with them to discover the cosmos, on a quest for the best hazelnuts in the universe.

Hazelnuts is written for young children, aged 5 upwards, using a format specially designed for that age group: visual gags, a format inspired by puppet theatre, and astronomical concepts which have been adapted to their level of understanding.

By introducing the planets of our solar system from the point of view of life, Hazelnuts tells the story of conditions of life on Earth. This allows us to broach several subjects: inhabitable zones, the essential role of the atmosphere, and even the different stages of the creation of planet Earth.

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Incoming!

In the California Academy of Sciences’ latest original planetarium show, Incoming!, audiences will discover how asteroids and comets have collided with our planet throughout history, changing the course of life on Earth and shaping the world we know today. From the comfort of a planetarium seat, viewers will embark on a dynamic journey on the trail of asteroids and comets, get an up close look at the advanced technologies that allow scientists to detect asteroids before they reach Earth, and visualize historic space events billions of years in the making—all within an immersive, all-digital dome that brings the captivating story our cosmic origins to life like never before.

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Invaders of MArs

The invaders have landed! Join us as we study the Martian surface as seen by Earth’s various spacecraft “invaders.” We will explore the great chasms, canyons, and volcanoes, descend amid the ice of a Martian polar cap, and be buffeted by swirling dust devils. Blinded by the planet-wide storms which engulf this world from time to time, we emerge to discover the red planet Mars.

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Journey to Space

In the past half-century, humans have punched through the stratosphere, walked on the moon and lived continuously in orbit. In the coming decades, our unquenchable curiosity will take our species beyond the cradle of Earth to touch the face of another world. Strap in for the next giant leap. Next stop … Mars!

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The Making of a Star and Her Entourage

Discover how human thought and understanding has changed dramatically over the centuries and explore how stars form and how x-rays from the forming star may impede the formation of planetary systems.

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Mars one thousand one

Mars One Thousand One tells the story of a daring, 1000-day mission to fly an international crew to Mars and return them safely to Earth. Many hurdles will have to be overcome to succeed. Embark on the greatest adventure of the 21st century and unlock the secrets of the new world!

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Natural Selection

In Victorian times, many physical phenomena were already discovered and described by natural laws, but life’s most eloquent mechanism was still unknown. How could new species arise to replace those lost in extinction? Charles Darwin pondered these questions on an adventurous voyage of exploration aboard the HMS Beagle.

In Natural Selection you will witness the thrill of scientific discovery by seeing the world through Darwin’s eyes. Make observations of the most beautiful, natural scenery, and let Darwin himself reveal his theory of natural selection. This simple and elegant theory explains the formation and diversity of life on Earth.

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Origins of Life

Origins of Life deals with some of the most profound questions of life science; the origin of life and the human search for life beyond Earth. Starting with the big bang, the show explores pre-biotic chemistry in the universe, the formation of stars, formation of solar systems and the first life on Earth. Furthermore, Origins of Life covers the great extinctions as well as our search for primitive life beyond planet Earth. Origins of Life is a motivational journey through time and a celebration of life on Earth. It features many recent discoveries related to life science, demonstrating that if there was ever a time that science made its greatest advances, it would be right now!

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Phantom of the Universe

Phantom of the Universe is a new planetarium show that showcases an exciting exploration of dark matter, from the big bang to its anticipated discovery at the Large Hadron Collider. The show is offered to planetariums worldwide free of charge.

The show reveals the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term “dark matter.” It describes the astral choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda galaxy and then plummets deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine.

From there, it journeys across space and time to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, speeding alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter.

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Secrets of Gravity

12-year-old Luke is far more interested in the universe and its secrets than boring magic spells. He is fascinated by the stars, the universe and the laws of nature. One night, he sneaks into the Albert Einstein Museum where he meets ALBYX3, a small, clever, rather quirky robot who knows all about Albert Einstein and his theories. ALBY takes Luke on a magical journey through space and time during which they not only uncover the secrets of gravity but also learn about friendship and imagination.

NOT available after October 31, 2024

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Secret Lives of Stars

Not all stars are created equal. Some are massive. Others are tiny; almost insignificant. The specific characteristics of a star will determine what type of life it will lead, how long it might live and even the type of death it will die.

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Seven Wonders

Join us as we travel back in time to explore the Seven Wonders of the World. In Ancient Egypt, we will visit the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the great pyramids, then travel to Persia to view the Mausoleum, and to Babylon to be awed by the fabled Hanging Gardens. The journey will continue to Greece to tour the Temples of Zeus and Artemis, and then to Rhodes to stand in the shadow of the towering Colossus. We will investigate the theories of how these wonders were created and get a glimpse of some of the universe’s greatest wonders.

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Stars: The Powerhouse of the Universe

Every star has a story. Some are as old as time, faint and almost forgotten. Journey to the furthest reaches of our galaxy and experience both the awesome beauty and destructive power of stars. Suitable for audiences of all ages, this dramatic program features the voice talent of Mark Hamill and stunning 3D animation by NSC Creative. Educational content includes stellar evolution, space exploration, the electromagnetic spectrum and the history of astronomy.

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The Sun: Our Living Star

The sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived.

It is our nearest star and our planet’s powerhouse; the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life.

Discover the secrets of our star in this planetarium show and experience never-before-seen images of the sun’s violent surface in immersive full-dome format.

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Totality Over Texas

A once in a lifetime astronomical event is happening over Texas in 2024! Total solar eclipses are a rare and beautiful phenomena, and in this new planetarium show you will learn how eclipses happen, how to safely view one, and where these two eclipses take place. Texas is the nexus for the annular eclipse of 2023 and the total solar eclipse of 2024!

NOT available after April 8th, 2024