The Dr. Edmond E. Griffin Planetarium, located in the Conway Corporation Center for the Sciences, is an educational wonder that nurtures an astronomical array of enriching scientific material on outer space.

Every Friday and Saturday evening at 7 p.m., the planetarium puts on a special one-hour show open to the general public that explores time and space itself.

On Feb. 24 and 25, the planetarium showcased the short documentary “Unveiling the Invisible Universe.”

Scott Austin, an associate professor of astronomy and physics, opened the night with a usual preview of the current evening sky.

“I’ll show you what’s currently up in terms of stars, constellations, planets and so forth,” Austin said.

The audience gazed up at the projected visual of the solar system on the ceiling dome.

Austin panned through a series of planets and provided facts about measuring distance in space and the brightness of stars to enhance the viewing experience.

“We’re going to zoom in on Venus,” Austin said. “Astronomers use the earth-sun distance as a yardstick, and the planet Venus is currently about 1.4 AU from us. That’s followed by 130 million miles from us. And at a magnitude of minus 3.7, that means it’s quite a bit brighter than the bright stars currently up in the sky.”

After traveling through several of Jupiter’s moons, such as Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, then landing on Uranus and soaring through constellations and clouds of nebula, Austin screened a short video on light pollution. 

“We are losing the dark of night at the speed of light,” the narrator said. “Light pollution threatens the health of every living thing on earth. Exposure to light at night disrupts the circadian rhythms that regulate our sleep cycles. People working at night under bright lights or living in light-polluted cities face a higher risk of developing diseases such as breast and prostate cancer.”

The short film displayed an image of the night sky if there was no light pollution. Millions of stars peppered the sky, and the Milky Way stretched across the hazy, breathtaking darkness.

“Many people have never seen [the Milky Way],” the narrator said. “Light pollution simply washes out their view of the cosmos.” 

At last, after the presentation on light pollution concluded, Austin played “Unveiling the Invisible Universe,” a film about the evolution of telescopes and an expedition into elements of the universe humans cannot see with the naked eye.

It went back in time to Italian scientist Galileo Galilei’s “small homemade telescope” and rocketed forward to his “simplistic instrument” evolving into “huge technologically advanced and precise scientific instruments,” according to the documentary’s narrator.

Telescopes are keys to the past; they unlock glimpses of space hidden from the human eye.

The film cast images of massive stars meeting violent demises due to supernova explosions. 

The audience was mesmerized by the soft glow of neutron stars, radio galaxies and galactic nuclei.

“Finally, we can observe the primordial universe, where the death of the first stars was much more violent,” the narrator said. “And the interactions and merging of the galaxies were taking place more often.

“The decoding of the hidden messages that the stars carry, as well as the torrents of exotic particles and space itself, reveal the universe in all its grandeur.” 

Mikayla Shaw, a sophomore majoring in biology, articulated her admiration for the planetarium and the show.

“[It] was very great,” she said. “As always. This is my third in a row — probably about my fifth show overall. Highly recommend.”

The Dr. Edmond E. Griffin Planetarium is a valuable resource for UCA students and the public to blast off into space and survey the unknown cosmos.