The Adler ‘Scope

Cover Photo Credit: Chris Smith For decades NASA’s plans for human space exploration have focused on Mars as the preeminent target. However, in December 2017, the Trump administration issued a national policy directive through its freshly reconstituted Space Council calling for a return to the Moon—not just with Apollo-style landings, but “for long-term exploration and […]

This December, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon, one of the most amazing journeys of exploration in human history. This was the first time humans ever ventured away from Earth’s immediate vicinity, and the first time anyone saw both sides of the Moon with their own eyes. On […]

[Header Image: This collage of solar images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows how observations of the sun in different wavelengths of light helps highlight different aspects of the sun’s surface and atmosphere. Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center.] The Sun looks pretty boring, right? It’s just a glowing ball in the sky that doesn’t […]

It’s strange to imagine, but humans left the vicinity of the Earth for the first time just 50 years ago this month. The Apollo 8 flight was an incredible feat of exploration that required astronauts to navigate using sextants and radio signals. Highlights from this 6-day mission include the successful (and difficult) placement of the […]

For more than two decades now, the Artefacts consortium has been promoting an annual meeting that brings together museum professionals and scholars working with scientific and technological collections. This year’s meeting, the 23rd in the series, was hosted by the Adler Planetarium, under the theme “Relevance of Collections.” During the three days of Artefacts XXIII […]

Episode 3 of the Aquarius Project Podcast is available now! If you’re new to the series, start here. It’s been a minute since our last update about The Aquarius Project, the Adler Planetarium’s one-of-a-kind underwater meteorite hunt. If you haven’t been following #aquariusproject on Open Explorer or your social media platform of choice, you might […]

Chicago has long been a city of stargazers. And one way or another, all astronomical roads in Chicago have led to the Adler since it became the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere in 1930. Here are a few stories, objects, and documents from our collections that remind us how the Adler has helped Chicagoans […]

Changes are coming to Chicago’s nights. The city is replacing streetlights with a new generation of lighting. These new lights will change how our neighborhoods look and how we view the sky. Will new lighting worsen light pollution? How can we help keep the stars visible for Chicago? Learn how the Adler Planetarium is helping […]

You have certainly marveled at the space artifacts we have on display in the Mission Moon exhibition. But it might surprise you that one of the oldest objects in our collections to have flown to space is actually a 200-year-old pocket globe. In December 1999, it was taken aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the mission […]