Dawn of the Space Age:

The quest to explore outer space was a much-cherished dream of mankind. The idea emerged from fiction into reality on October 4, 1957, when the erstwhile Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first-ever artificial satellite of the Earth. Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The first spacewalk by Alexey Leonov was another major achievement. The success of the Soviet Union's launch into space triggered the United States to initiate its space programmes. The race between the two nations led to the Apollo and Luna missions. The programme "Dawn of the Space Age" narrates the passion, enthusiasm, and perseverance of the pioneers with the scientific details of the challenges they had to face. Ups and downs in the space programmes were inevitable in the totally new environment and unforeseen challenges. The safe return of Yuri Gagarin to Earth and the reentry of Alexey Leonov into the module after the spacewalk are some examples. Docking, which is very commonly used today, was first attempted by Neil Armstrong, only to be abandoned. The historical step of Neil Armstrong and the subsequent trips to the moon provided opportunities to carry out scientific experiments like running a vehicle on the moon and the famous "feather and hammer" demonstration to verify Galileo's principle of equivalence. It boosted the confidence of the two nations, which ventured into unmanned space trips to Mars and Venus later. What began as a rivalry between superpowers resulted in mutual appreciation and, finally, cooperation. The initial efforts and experience of the Soviets on the Mir Space Station gave valuable input to the International Space Station, which is serving mankind with its special laboratory facilities.

Kannada at 11:30 am ( Only on Saturday and Sunday )



Our Solar system

The program first introduces the audience to the night sky as seen from Bangalore. Prominent constellations are identified and mythological stories associated with some of them narrated. Thereafter, a brief discussion about the strange motions in planets observed against the backdrop of constellations is done, leading to questions about the centre of motion of planets – Sun or the Earth. With the advent of telescopes, even moderate ones, planets came to be studied in great detail beyond what the people had seen before its invention. Telescopic explorations apart, space missions such as Voyagers and Pioneers unveiled planets in a completely new light. Thanks to these missions and some missions such as Galileo and Cassini landed to study specific planets and their satellites. As a result, we, now, have very detailed accounts of the planetary surface features. Even small bodies like comets have not been spared from our space craft bound explorations. The present planetarium show discusses all these through indigenously created 3D animations and high quality visuals provided by Zeiss. This format facilitates entire sky-theatre dome to be used for casting images / videos. It gives a new, ‘immersive feel’ to the audience. This is the first time in India that a full-fledged, indigenously created full-dome show has been produced in this kind of projection system.

Show: "Our Solar system"

Kannada slots: 2:30 pm



Gravity:

This is the latest 4K Full dome sky-theatre show to be produced by Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru. It is a thirty-seven minute audio-visual show made using digital projectors as well as opto-mechanical projector. The first half of the programme is devoted to gravity-related phenomena that can be understood using Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. The second half of the programme deals with Einstein’s notion of gravity and several phenomena that were predicted by this theory and how we have successfully made observations that have established the theory as a correct one…at least this far. The programme discusses the significant contributions made by Indian scientists in some of these.

Kannada at 3:30 pm