New Hayden Planetarium show in New York maps the moving sky
"Encounters in the Milky Way" at the American Museum of Natural History explores the motion of our solar system through the galaxy, using scientific data and visualizations to explain how these cosmic movements have shaped—and continue to influence—our position in space.
One of the most significant findings to emerge during the show’s production came from modeling the Oort cloud, a distant region filled with icy debris left over from the formation of the solar system.
The Oort cloud visualization is just one example of how “Encounters in the Milky Way” uses data to generate new insights and drive scientific storytelling.
The American Museum of Natural History will debut "Encounters in the Milky Way" at the Hayden Planetarium on June 9. Narrated by actor Pedro Pascal, the production marks the seventh original show created for the planetarium and coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Rose Center for Earth and Space.
REUTERS / AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
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00:00We increase the rate of time to thousands of years per second.
00:18And taking us along for the ride.
00:21The outer part of the solar system that we call the Oort cloud, it's this leftover debris
00:37from when the solar system formed.
00:39Lots and lots, millions and millions of comets, maybe even some asteroids that are out there.
00:45And what we were going to show is dynamic interactions that might happen between our
00:52Oort cloud and other stars' Oort clouds as everything is in motion and stars pass by
00:58each other.
00:59As we were modeling the Oort cloud, we turned to one of the world's leading experts on modeling
01:07it.
01:07His name is David Nisvorni.
01:09He gave us his simulation.
01:10And we were looking at it inside of the planetarium just to get an idea of how to make it beautiful
01:16for the show.
01:17And we played with how bright all the particles were.
01:21And we immediately saw something that we had never seen before, that no one had ever seen
01:28before.
01:29It was a spiral structure in this Oort cloud.
01:33Now, this Oort cloud is a simulation of what we think it looks like.
01:37But it's based on real data of objects we have measured in the outer part of our solar system.
01:44So when we saw it, we were blown away.
01:48It was a spiral shape, almost looking like a galaxy itself.
01:53But it's shaped by the forces of the galaxy itself, of what we call the tidal force of
02:02the galaxy.
02:02So this spiral structure was brand new.
02:07And we immediately wrote up a paper for an astrophysical journal.
02:13And it's now a published part of astronomers' knowledge of what the outer part of our solar
02:20system looks like.
02:22And it all came from visualizing data for the American Museum of Natural History's new
02:27space show, Encounters in the Milky Way.
02:29Join me on a journey through our tight-knit, stellar neighborhood into the bustling metropolis
02:39of the Milky Way.
02:43We'll witness some of the chance encounters that have shaped the destiny of our sun.
02:50And maybe even the course of life in the cosmos.
02:53On our travels, we can expect to pass through bubbles again and again, because the galaxy
03:02is peppered with massive stars that go out in a blaze, creating gigantic dust-clearing shockwaves.
03:11Though each star's path is unique, we're all on a journey around the Milky Way galaxy.
03:21For us, for our sun and solar system, one orbit takes 230 million years to complete.
03:33See the Big Dipper?
03:35Watch as we increase the rate of time to thousands of years per second.
03:39Watch as we increase the rate of time to thousands of years per second.
03:43By feeding God as gather and to complete, one orbit takes 230 million years to complete.
03:49See the Big Dipper?
03:50Watch as we increase the rate of time to thousands of years per second.
03:55By feeding God as gather and to computer models, scientists can simulate the past, present and
04:19future of our entire 200 billion star galaxy.
04:23See the Big Dipper?
04:26Some star clusters hint at a large structure, a thousand light-years across.
04:35It's a clearing within dense clouds of gas and dust.
04:46We call this our local bubble.
04:53Our solar system is currently inside the clearing.
04:58Which is why stargazers on Earth have such a magnificent view of the Milky Way.
05:05The Goosebump factor is a combination of really the notion that we're seeing real science, but we're putting that together in ways with the explanation, seeing how things behave at these vast scales, seeing our, again, our relationship to it.
05:28And we have to keep that thread.
05:31And then drawing that together as, you know, a pacing and a story that's really told within
05:38a limited time.
05:41We put the music score to it and Robert's music, as they say, really gives it wings.
05:46And that in the end, the show aspect is something that you feel here at best, if we can pull that off.
05:54The stars, we say they're beautiful, we say the flowers are beautiful or a landscape.
06:15Why that's beautiful is because I think we do react to it on a level that's emotional and it reminds us of our place in a much grander realm.
06:30And the stars, ultimately so, I mean, for so much of human existence, we didn't know whether they might just be 10 feet above our heads, you know, but there's something that echoes the periodicity of the sky.
06:46And, you know, it was our notion of a clock is based on our diurnal, repetitive nature and all this.
06:54But you look at the stars, you're looking at light, it's coming to you, the sun is too bright to look at, but there's something almost hinting at that these are other suns, perhaps.
07:07And then that light that links us, when we figured out that that's traveling at a set amount of time, you can look at the, you can look out at the stars and you're looking back into time.
07:23I mean, you're looking back into the times of lives, you're looking at light that's arriving from different epochs and different periods.
07:31And you can say, you know, a deceased relative or what have you, you're seeing light that really is still part of their time.
07:41That's where it gets kind of spiritual and, um, you know, and that's real and that's, you know, what I think holds us together.
