Earth Works

A A A Comments By Amber Taufen Thursday, Jul 15 2010

When you ordinarily think of a planetarium, “you think of a place to examine stars,” acknowledges Kirk Johnson, chief curator and vice president of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s research and collections division. “But suddenly, the planetarium becomes about the Earth.” At least, it does at Digital Earth: Explore the Earth From Space, a program the museum is hosting in conjunction with the Biennial of the Americas that can be summarized as Google Earth on steroids.

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“It gives you the ability to see Earth as if you were an astronaut,” Johnson says. But unlike being inside a space shuttle, the program leaders — Johnson, curator of space science Ka Chun Yu and earth sciences research associate Bob Raynolds — will be able to “steer,” skimming from place to place, sometimes at the altitude of a space shuttle and sometimes at the altitude of an airplane, or anywhere in between. “It’s just a really cool way to visit a place you’re not actually visiting,” notes Johnson.

Catch Digital Earth tonight at 7 p.m. in the museum’s Gates Planetarium. Admission is $8 for members and $10 for non-members, and Johnson anticipates that audience requests to see specific parts of the Americas — the Amazon rainforest or a peak in the Andes or Rocky Mountains — will be part of the show. The museum is at 2001 Colorado Boulevard; call 303-370-6000 or visit www.dmns.org.
Tue., July 20, 7 p.m., 2010

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