December 2017: Solar Celebrations

Craving a little sunshine on these dark, cold days? Prepare for Winter Solstice by helping us celebrate our Sun and all things solar!

Visit during our public hours this month to immerse yourself in high-definition solar energy wavelengths, help us monitor our solar power with our real-time energy dashboard, understand why it’s so dark this time of year, and learn all about our main star and how it sustains life on Earth.

• NASA Solarium — SPECIAL Immersion Theater FEATURE!
  Experience the Sun as you never have before with this incredible immersive presentation from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Accompanied by a booming soundtrack of energy waves traveling through the center of the Sun, the Sun’s ultraviolet atmosphere dances in brilliant high-resolution; giant waves and loops swell up over the surface and eruptions of material five, 10, 50 times the size of Earth explode out into space. Credits: Tom Bridgman, Genna Duberstein, Scott Wiessinger, and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory media specialists worked about ten hours to create one minute of this footage.
• Energy Planet — Science on a Sphere
  View captivating spherical visualizations in this brisk overview of the energy challenges facing our planet, and learn how we can use solar energy and other renewable energy technologies to help meet them.
• Why Do We Have Seasons? — Exhibit Floor Kiosk and Immersion Theater
  Explore Earth’s tilt and orbit around the Sun, rotating like a slightly tilted, spinning top. This rotation changes the angle at which sunlight hits the surface of our planet, creating the different seasons we experience, giving us solstices, equinoxes, and affecting the productivity of life on Earth’s land oceans.
• Make a Sun Clock! – Phenology Center
  A major factor contributing toward our concept of time is based on the apparent motion of the Sun from our perspective on Earth. This simple Sun Clock can help you use the Sun’s position in the sky to tell you the time of day.
• SunCast – Kids’ ClimateCast Studio
  Give a solar weather report, live from the surface of the sun! See real solar flares, solar wind, and other helio-activity rendered in stunning NASA Ultra-HD footage!
• Real-Time Solar Dashboards – MGE Renewable Energy Center
  Learn about solar energy and help us monitor our rooftop solar panels with real-time energy dashboards – available in the MGE Renewable Energy Center and other exhibit touchscreens.

We would like to thank ATC and DuPont for supporting our monthly exhibit themes. There is always something new to discover at ALNC!