Google Arts and Culture
Explore the Universe With Us
The Adler Planetarium’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture provides an online exhibition space where tens of thousands of visitors (worldwide!) have already gained access to the stories that make the Adler a place of discovery and wonder. The Adler Planetarium—America’s first planetarium—hosts more than half a million visitors each year and reaches millions more through on-site youth STEM programs, neighborhood skywatching events, online citizen science, and other outreach projects. Regardless of time period, nationality, gender, or religion, humans have always looked up and tried to make sense of the sky that we all share. Visit our Google Arts & Culture page and explore this human centered history of astronomy and the Universe with us.
Voices of Apollo
On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy promised, “We choose to go to the Moon.” Here we feature stories of those individuals who made the Moon landing possible, in their own words.
Picturing Women in Astronomy and Space Exploration
Images spanning four centuries reveal changing attitudes towards the participation of women in astronomy and space exploration, and hint at enduring prejudices and stereotypes yet to be eradicated.
Highlights of the Adler Planetarium: Archives
The Adler Planetarium’s archives document the history of the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere since its inception. They also cover important aspects of the history of astronomy and its tools.
A Martian Sensation: Maps, Delusion, and the Mars Canals
Learn how the alleged observation of “canals” in Mars helped set the scenes for an enduring fascination with the red planet.
Highlights of the Adler Planetarium: Rare Books & Works on Paper
The Adler’s Rare Book Collection contains over 3,000 volumes, from first printed editions of medieval astronomical texts to star atlases and astrophysical works that shaped our modern view of the Universe.
Highlights of the Adler Planetarium: Scientific Instruments
The Adler Planetarium is home to one of the world’s greatest collections of historic instruments. The collection documents nine centuries of human effort to understand and explore the Universe, and to design and build tools that have brought us closer to the sky.
Imagine the Moon
The Moon has been a source of wonder, inspiration, and knowledge for all of human history. As people studied and recorded the patterns of the Moon’s movements, they discovered that the Moon was much more than a mysterious light in our sky—it was a place they might be able to visit some day.
Frederick J. Brown and the Milky Way
In 1977, the artist Frederick J. Brown made a large painting titled “Milky Way” in collaboration with the Adler Planetarium. This work resonates with a longstanding quest to understand our place in the Universe – a quest where artistic imagination, sensibility, and skill are by no means foreign.