New CyberSphere show at Renaissance Center explores Mauna Kea observatories in Hawaii

Release Date: 9/3/2003. Expired: 10/18/2003

The 14,000-foot summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea is home to the world’s largest observatory for optical, infrared and submillimeter astronomy. A new planetarium show in the CyberSphere Digital Theater of The Renaissance Center in Dickson explores Mauna Kea, which means the “white mountain,” from its geological formation a million years ago to the cutting edge astronomy done on the mountain now with the biggest telescopes in the world.

Explorers of Mauna Kea is presented in the CyberSphere at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturdays from Sept. 6 to Oct. 18. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for seniors and children under 13.

“The history of our species is the history of exploration,” said Ron Stinson, director of the CyberSphere. “From the very beginning, humans have explored and voyaged across our planet and beyond. It is our nature to explore new frontiers. Mauna Kea is taking that exploration further than it has ever gone.”

Located on the Big Island of Hawaii, Mauna Kea is the site of telescopes operated by astronomers from 11 countries. The combined light-gathering power of the telescopes on Mauna Kea is 15 times greater than that of the Palomar telescope in California - for many years the world’s largest - and 60 times greater than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Of the 13 telescopes near the summit, nine are for optical and infrared astronomy, three are for submillimeter wavelength astronomy and one is for radio astronomy.

“The Explorers Project was the brainchild of former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye,” said Joe Wyatt, assistant director of the CyberSphere. “After touring astronomical observatories at the summit of Mauna Kea and sailing aboard the Hawaiilo’a, a replica of a 2000-year-old Polynesian voyaging canoe, Goldin saw the connection that has spanned almost 60,000 years of human exploration, the spirit of discovery.”

In a cooperative education partnership, the Bishop Museum and NASA set out to engage and challenge audiences across the nation to rediscover their voyaging roots. Through this planetarium show, audiences will uncover a universal truth known to all adventurers: the desire to explore is the sign of a healthy civilization, one that greets the future with hope and determination.

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano forming the highest point in the Pacific Basin and the highest island-mountain in the world, with a summit higher than 40 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere above the mountain is extremely dry - which is important in measuring infrared and submillimeter radiation from celestial sources - and cloud-free, so that the proportion of clear nights is among the highest in the world.

“Explorers of Mauna Kea offers everyone the chance to see one of the most critical space observation points on the planet without having to travel to Hawaii,” said Stinson. “Most visitors who travel to the mountain only get to go to the Visitor Information Station, which is almost 5,000 feet below the summit. The people going to work at the summit must acclimatize when coming from sea level so the mid-level Onizuka Center for International Astronomy was built in 1982 and eventually named for Ellison Onizuka, an astronaut who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster.”

For more information about the Mauna Kea observatories, visit the University of Hawaii’s Web site at www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/. For information on Explorers of Mauna Kea and other shows in the CyberSphere Digital Theater at The Renaissance Center, visit its Web site at www.rcenter.org/Home/CyberSphere or call (615)740-5600. The CyberSphere is a four-story domed theater containing cutting edge starfield, laser and digital projectors along with 14,000 watts of digital Surround Sound. It is located at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the CyberSphere page for more about Planetarium and Laser Shows or the Home - News page for current and archived press releases.