The Adler ‘Scope

Header Image: Apollo 13 crew returning home after their ocean landing. Image Credit: NASA This month marks the 50th anniversary of the harrowing Apollo 13 mission, which was dangerous and unprecedented. Today, our world faces a very different kind of crisis, but one that is equally unprecedented, with the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. […]

The Adler Planetarium’s newest exhibition, Chicago’s Night Sky, contains a first for the museum – an interactive experience that partners the Adler’s historic collection with the Zooniverse team. Learn about this Adler Zooniverse research project!

“Chicago’s Black Women in STEAM” is a series on The Adler ’Scope that highlights the awesome women of Chicago who are doing amazing things in science, technology, engineering, art, and math fields here in our own community. Meet women of varying ages, backgrounds, and interests and learn their unique stories. Britt Julious Editorial Director at […]

Summer Camps at the Adler Planetarium are out-of-this-world. All summer long, campers have the whole universe at their fingertips. With tools like telescopes, programmable robots, and high-altitude balloons—and new friends around every corner—Adler summer campers share adventures of cosmic proportions. Manager of Program Development at the Adler Planetarium, Sarah Smail, is passionate about our Adler […]

YOU GUYS. It’s finally happening. We have reached the “hunting for meteorites underwater” portion of the Adler’s teen-led underwater meteorite hunt! If you’re new to the Aquarius Project, you can get the full story here. But here’s the short version: Green fireball in the sky, meteorites in the lake, assemblage of unlikely band of science […]

Header Image: Moon rising above the Adler Planetarium. Image Credit: Chris Smith Update: This blog is revised each year with upcoming date of supermoons. In 2023, four supermoons will occur! But what is a supermoon exactly? And why is it so “super”? What Is a Supermoon? Supermoon is a nickname that describes a Full Moon […]

Arguably, one of the most well-known fixtures of our night sky is the Big Dipper. But did you know that this night-sky staple once served as a beacon to freedom here in America during the time of the Underground Railroad? In the early-to-mid 19th century, countless American slaves used the Big Dipper⁠—aka the Drinking Gourd⁠—as […]

Header Image: Benjamin Banneker’s almanac for the year 1795 being digitally scanned for preservation. BENJAMIN BANNEKER’S 1795 ALMANAC Way before we had smartphones, almanacs were an important source of practical information and amusement for many people. African-American astronomer and mathematician Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), produced several almanacs, which were published over a period of six consecutive […]

It’s been a year since the launch of The Adler ’Scope blog’s Chicago’s Black Women in STEAM series, and we couldn’t be more proud of how much it has grown. Whether it was a food scientist at PepsiCo creating the newest flavors for Gatorade, an astrochemist simulating the atmospheres of far away worlds, or an […]

Header Caption: This Hubble Deep Field image shows a snapshot of the diverse types of galaxies in our universe. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/STScI Hubble Deep Field Team Did you know that up until the last century, humans believed that our Milky Way was the only galaxy in the known universe? Today, we now know that this […]