The phase “holding the world in the palm of your hand” is often attributed to poet William Blake, a metaphor for getting everything you want. While you might not be able to get everything you want, Liberty Science Center’s new permanent exhibit may make it possible for you to get a better understanding of the earth and other planets.
On April 20, National Astronomy Day, Liberty Science Center unveiled the New York metropolitan area’s only publicly-accessible installation of the groundbreaking “Science on a Sphere.”
“This is a six-foot suspended glowing sphere that takes real time data in terms of weather, tsunamis, hurricanes, and also looks at other planets,” Liberty Science Center President and CEO Paul Hoffman. “What makes Science on the Sphere special is that it is the only place in the metropolitan area that we can see it.”
Developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the sphere displays the earth’s four quadrants in 3D and enables visitors to experience atmospheric events on earth as well as on other planets and moons in our solar system, many of them in real time.
An early look at the sphere
In a sneak preview, Mick Shanahan, planetarium director for LSC, demonstrated some of the uses of the globe, and how it can become an education center for numerous areas of environmental and other sciences.
The globe provides images of earth and other planets and can provide real time images of natural events occurring across the globe. It can also provide detailed studies of historic events, such as the 2011 tsunami that struck Japan, or development of Super Storm Sandy in 2012.
While the globe has many views, the basic view of earth on display during the preview was from NASA imaging from the year 2001.
“Over a six-month period they got a shot of earth with no clouds whatsoever,” Shanahan said. “Then they put clouds on to make it look realistic.”
The image of a cloudless earth was the result of a series of photographs taken from a satellite about 450 miles out in space.
The image on the globe comes from four projectors that are aligned to give a seamless image.
“What it does really, really well is anything that goes on on a globe,” he said, flicking a control switch to take off the cloud cover, and then with another flick replaces the clouds.
Shanahan said the sphere can show real time weather occurrences as well as historic ones that will allow students to study current trends or those leading up to major events of the past.
These images come from the NOAA information banks.
“It’s clearing up now,” Shanahan said, putting the current image on. “But if you go back a couple of days, you have a pretty wet Monday when I got wet waiting for the light rail. This is very good for this area because weather is so changeable. People will really remember, ‘Oh yes, I was caught in that pounding rain.’”
“This is a six-foot suspended glowing sphere that takes real time data in terms of weather, tsunamis, hurricanes and also look at other planets.” – Paul Hoffman.
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Information past and present
The database stores real time patterns for a month, but also contains information from historic events of the past that allow students to more closely study them.
The historical records show a number of significant things such as earthquakes, and so when he brings up the model showing all the quakes that hit earth since 2001 to 2015, circles appear in patterns, showing size and intensity. There are hundreds of these, mostly gathered along fault lines and where global plates meet.
“What’s really great about the sphere, NOAA invented it, but NASA got on board right away as well and they made all of its imagery available,” Shanahan said. “The planets are available in the same format as well.”
This means that the program can compare earth to places like Mars. And again, he changes the view, and Mars appears on the sphere.
“We have exceptionally high-detailed images of Mars because we sent so many robots to Mars that there’s a large database of images,” Shanahan said, pointing to The Grand Canyon of Mars, a 3,000 mile long scar across the face of the planet.
This is particularly relevant since the planet Mars will be closer to earth this year than it has been since 2003. This is also the 80th anniversary of the radio broadcast of H.G. Well’s “War of the Worlds,” which caused a panic.
He said LSC will likely develop programs using the sphere in conjunction with both.
“We’re definitely going to do something in July for Mars’ close approach, but we’ll see what we can do about the night of the scare.”
Some planets have more information
While the sphere can show images from most of the planets, Mars and Jupiter have the most information available. The Galileo Mission, which sent a vehicle to orbit Jupiter, provided a wealth of information that the sphere can use.
“Every planet has had a least one visit,” Shanahan said. “In a case where a probe has orbited a planet, you get more high resolution images.”
Programs for the sphere might well be hooked to which planets are visible in the sky at the moment.
“Right now we have Venus in the evening sky and you have Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in the morning sky,” he said. “We like to show people things they can see in the real world.”
A preview for Earth Day
The sphere will be introduced to the public for the first time on April 20, which, he said, happens to be Astronomy Day and will continue on April 21, Earth Day. The public will be able to see a demonstration free with general admission ticket.
“It’s a perfect weekend to debut,” Shanahan said. “These are brief overviews of the sphere for opening weekend where folks can see what it can do. We’ll focus on astronomy on Saturday, and then Sunday, we’ll focus on Earth images for Earth Day.”
Regular programming starts on April 22, two shows a day for the public on weekdays, three shows a day on weekends, for a nominal additional fee along with general admittance tickets.
More hands-on programming will be available for school groups. LSC educators trained in atmospheric and space science will deliver programs for K-12 students and guests tracking real-time conditions on the globe anywhere on earth’s surface with high definition images uploaded directly from NOAA and NASA.
Hoffman said there are 500 data sets available for the sphere.
“What I love about it is that you can play with the data yourself,” he said. “Yesterday, we were looking at Sandy and Katrina. You can go back in time and see the whole evolution of the storm system and where they hit. That’s what we’ll be doing with school groups.”
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.
