This Saturday January 4th, HR MacMillan Space Centre is hosting a special New Year event for the whole family.
The Perihelion is the moment when the Earth will be closest to the sun for all of 2020, astronomically considered the start of the solar year.
Perihelion Family Night at HR MacMillan Space Centre includes activities, live science demos, and tours of the observatory.
The evening’s agenda is as follows:
6:30pm – 8:15pm Observatory Tours (weather permitting)
6:30pm – 8:15pm “Seeing the Invisible” – GroundStation Canada Theatre
Astronomers use a variety of tools to help see things beyond the visible spectrum. This demonstration will show visitors a variety of the same techniques astronomers use. A round of trivia will test how well guests’ were paying attention to the demo.
Live shows will run every 30 minutes.
8:15pm – 9:00pm Planetarium Star Theatre Show
What does perihelion mean, how do orbits work, and are the orbits for all planets and moons the same? Hosts will answer these questions as well as looking back at all of the hottest (and coldest) topics in space from the last decade, and ahead to 2030.
This decade saw the discovery of gravitational waves, the first black hole photo, and travelled to Pluto. The coming years are sure to be exciting too with the new Mars rover that is equipped with a helicopter to explore the surface, humans heading back to the moon, and the launch of the Hubble Telescope’s successor the James Webb Space Telescope.
HR MacMillan Space Perihelion Family Night takes place Saturday, 4 January 2020 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM, tickets are available on Eventbrite.