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Downing Planetarium

Weekend Shows

About

Public shows at the Downing Planetarium are on selected Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. There is free parking available for weekend shows in parking lot P15, right in front of the planetarium (shown in green on campus map). 

Reservations are strongly recommended. Tickets can be held at the door by filling out our reservation form. Ticket payment can be made at the time of ticket pick-up. Pre-payment is not necessary. Please note that tickets will be held only until 10 minutes prior to show time and then they will be sold to the next customer. Shows start promptly on the hour.

Make Reservation Admission Prices


Show Schedule

DAY TIME SHOW
Friday
November 15, 2024
6:00 PM Space Aliens  (SOLD OUT)
7:30 PM Unveiling the Invisible Universe  (SOLD OUT)
Saturday
November 16, 2024
2:00 PM Daughter of the Stars  (SOLD OUT)
3:30 PM The Sun: Our Living Star  (SOLD OUT)

 

Current Planetarium Shows

Poster for the Space Aliens planetarium show

Space Aliens: Looking for Life in the Universe

Are aliens real? Is it possible that they could travel across the vast regions of outer space in order to visit us? Join our alien experts – Hopeful and Skeptical – as they try to convince each other whether or not life exists beyond Earth. Follow their astrobiology arguments from the ocean floor to a journey across the galaxy!

Reserve Tickets for Space Aliens
Poster for Unveiling the Invisible Universe planetarium show

Unveiling the Invisible Universe

For thousands of years humans have used their eyes to see light coming from the night sky. Today, we know that what we can see with our eyes is but a tiny fraction of the true Universe. At the beginning of the 17th century, the invention of the astronomical telescope by Galileo revolutionized our knowledge of our solar system. In the 20th century, with the arrival of rockets, it became possible to travel above the Earth’s atmosphere to observe xray and gamma ray radiation, evidence of a hot and violent Universe. More recently, the detection of gravitational waves from two merging black holes has opened an entirely new window in astrophysics. Enjoy spellbinding images of the Cosmos as revealed by all these unique messengers.

Reserve Tickets for Unveiling the Invisible Universe
Daughter of the Stars planetarium show poster

Daughter of the Stars

This program is a collection of Native American sky stories, including the creation of the heavens and Earth from the Iroquois, the origin of the Sun and Moon from the Kutenai, and the cause of solar eclipses according to the Bella Coola. Learn how men traveled to the Moon to bring fire back to Earth for all the people in a legend from the Snake Indians. These stories will delight young and old alike.

Reserve Tickets for Daughter of the Stars
The Sun: Our Living Star planetarium show poster

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. The passage of the Sun’s fiery disc across the sky — day by day, month by month — was the only way to keep track of time for countless past civilizations. Although it is a typical dwarf star, the Sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all the planets combined. 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.

Reserve Tickets for The Sun: Our Living Star