Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity

Show Details

4/04/24

• Show runs 7:30-8:30pm, Doors open at 7pm
• Tickets for sale starting March 15 at Vallitix!
• Cost: $8 adults; $6 children + seniors + Vallitix processing fee

On Thursday evening, April 4, from 7:30 to 8:30 PM, the William M Thomas Planetarium will give the popular "Black Holes" show that has continually played to sold-out audiences. Doors will open 30 minutes before the show starts for seating and will be closed during the one-hour program with no late admittance. Tickets are available for $8/adults and $6/seniors and children 5-12 years old from Vallitix online only (tickets will NOT be sold at the door) starting March 15. The William M Thomas Planetarium is on the second floor, northwest end of the Math-Science Building, Room 112. No food, drink, or gum/candy is allowed in the planetarium. Children must be 5 years or older, though the Black Holes presentation is geared for 7th grade and above.  See the Online Campus Map for more information on the location of the planetarium, and our Parking Information page.

The one-hour show will begin with a short tour of the evening sky using the planetarium's Goto Chronos star projector followed by the 23-minute all-dome presentation from Denver Museum of Natural Science called "Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity" using our Spitz SciDome projector. This show brings the current science of black holes to the dome screen. Supported by grants from NASA's high-energy GLAST telescope project and the National Science Foundation, this cutting-edge fulldome projection features high-resolution, animated visualizations of cosmic phenomena, working with real data generated by computer simulations. [A visualization (as opposed to a Hollywood-type movie) uses only real data and computer simulations of real processes, not some artist's imagination.] Black Holes shows viewers the inside of a black hole for the first time by integrating the equations of Einstein's General Relativity with video game technology. Each second of the black hole visualization took 90 hours of computation on the world's fastest supercomputer (at NCSA--Univ Il)! 

Audiences will be dazzled with striking, immersive animations of the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, the collision of giant galaxies, and a simulated flight to the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy. NASA description.

Webpage contact: Nick Strobel