Experience NASA and space with your own eyes at Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center
The sheer beauty of space first struck Ben Burress as a child gazing up at stars, planets and galaxies through the Chabot Observatory telescopes in the 1970s. Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center has been an astronomy hub in Oakland for over a century, starting in 1883 with the acquisition of an 8-inch refracting telescope and a 36-inch reflector telescope. The new NASA Experience, launched in 2021, aims to teach complex science concepts using simple everyday items. The interactive exhibits include a towering 8-foot replica of NASA’s water-hunting VIPER rover and historic artifacts from the Ames Research Center. The museum also offers First Friday events and hands-on exhibits. The Chabbot Space & Science Center's staff astronomer, Ben Burress, says the experience of space first came to him as a child and reminded him of its beauty.
Publié : Il ya 4 mois par Arshad Majeed dans Science
The sheer beauty of space first struck Ben Burress as a child gazing up at stars, planets and galaxies through the Chabot Observatory telescopes in the 1970s.
Decades later, that youthful wonder came “flooding back,” he says, when he peered into those same reflecting mirrors — an unexpected thrill to relive as the Chabot Space and Science Center’s staff astronomer.
“There’s just something about having the light from Saturn bore into my own eye that reminded me, ‘Wow, this is why people come up here,” Burress says. “You cannot get that experience looking at photographs or a computer screen.”
Chabot has been an astronomy hub in Oakland for more than a century, beginning in 1883 with the acquisition of “Leah,” an 8-inch refracting telescope. Leah has since been joined by “Rachel,” a 20-inch refracting telescope commissioned in 1914, and “Nellie,” a 36-inch reflector telescope installed in 2003.
It was that 20-inch telescope that helped bring the Apollo 13 crew home in 1970. When NASA Ames sent up a desperate call for help after an explosion crippled the spacecraft, Chabot was the only observatory with clear skies and the data NASA needed — the ship’s precise location — to calculate a manual re-entry. Members of the East Bay Astronomical Society had been tracking the flight from Chabot.
When NASA Ames sent up a desperate call for help, Chabot was the only observatory with clear skies and the data NASA needed — the ship’s precise location — to calculate a manual re-entry after an explosion crippled the spacecraft. Members of the East Bay Astronomical Society had been tracking the flight from Chabot.
But a new chapter in Chabot’s relationship with the federal space program took off in November of 2021, when the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View launched “The NASA Experience,” its official visitor center, at Oakland’s space and science center.
The NASA visitor center is an immersive, educational playground that aims to teach complex science concepts using simple, everyday things. While Chabot has long boasted programs that combine kinetic, active play with opportunities for quiet learning, Burress said its exhibits are now bolstered with unprecedented access to NASA’s regular drumbeat of discoveries, experiments and questions.
Thanks to a five-year Space Act Agreement with the space agency and a 20-month transformation during the pandemic, Chabot’s visitors can now step into the (figurative) moon boots of astronauts and NASA Ames researchers — albeit on the other side of the Bay.
More than 100 historic artifacts are on display, including spacesuits from the Mercury and Gemini missions and a fan blade from the world’s largest wind tunnel, which produced speeds over 1,000 miles per hour — faster than the speed of sound — at the Ames Research Center.
In addition to the NASA exhibits, Chabot also offers a whole roster of creative First Friday events that spotlight topics like gamma rays, asteroid hunters and the Northern Lights, as well as hands-on exhibits featuring magnetic trains, water ripple tanks and computerized simulations.
Chabot creative director Tracy Corado’s goal is to keep the center nimble and ever-evolving, in order to keep up with fast paced scientific discoveries revolving around space, which can churn out “new news” on a daily basis.
So one of the Space and Science Center’s newest attractions is a towering, 8-foot replica of NASA’s water-hunting VIPER rover, which is on display here, as the Ames Research Center conducts final earthbound test drives ahead of its 2024 Artemis mission.
Isabel Lopez Ramirez, Chabot’s marketing manager, says she’s excited to see how the new NASA center experiences continue to uphold the museum’s 140-year history and generate new generations of nostalgia.
“We work to create a fun family time that’s educational, where you really get to embark on a journey,” Lopez Ramirez said. “This partnership with NASA means we’re continuing to make those moments and memories for children.”
There’s no question that gazing into the heavens continues to awe new generations, whether it’s visitors peering through Nellie on a clear Friday or Saturday evening or looking upward indoors. One of Chabot’s most popular attractions, says Burress, remains its planetarium, which was constructed in the early 1960s.
“Even though it’s just a projector that puts dots up on a dome, it’s so easy to forget that there is a building between you and the sky,” Burress says. “Planetariums are a great tool for letting your imagination take you on a trip to space in a different way than the telescopes do.”
Details: The Chabot Space & Science Center and NASA Ames visitors center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday (admission is $19-$24) and from 6 to 10 p.m. on the first Friday ($10-$15) of each month at 10000 Skyline Blvd. in Oakland; https://chabotspace.org.
Les sujets: Space, NASA