The Adler ‘Scope

[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 […]

Have you ever seen a comet in the night sky? I suspect most of the people reading this haven’t. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of comets in the Solar System—more than 5,000 have been discovered so far and several dozen can be spotted using very large telescopes each year—but because most comets are […]

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 […]

Hi, I’m Nick Lake, Presentation Leader & Theater Technician here at the Adler Planetarium. Today, I’d like to talk about our planetarium theaters, specifically the domes, and how we use planetarium software to transport viewers to new worlds. For me, the most exciting thing about planetarium domes is the ability to make the audience feel […]

Do the days seem to be getting a little darker this month? It’s not your imagination. You can see the change for yourself, along with some of the night’s brightest stars and planets, during the month of December 2018! This month the Sun rises around 7:00 am CT, and sets before 4:30 pm. That means […]

Sarah W. Manager of Development What do you enjoy the most about working at the Adler? I have the best job: I get to be a storyteller and ambassador for the Adler out in the community, and invite the community to be a part of what we’re doing at the Adler. The Adler team is […]

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 […]

This winter, we’re stopping to #LookUp and celebrate the mysteries and magnetism of our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon. The Moon has been a source of wonder for all of human history. It has been a muse for poetry, art, and epic stories. As people studied and recorded the patterns of the Moon’s movements, they […]

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 […]