Its a kind of Disneyland of science … Hemispheric Planetarium in the City of the Arts and Science located in Valencia, Spain. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Aka “the giant eye”, the “eye of wisdom”, “big human eye” etc. Clever to design a planetarium in the shape of an eye looking up at the heavens. Complete with an eyeball, which is the planetarium dome. Reminiscent of Geordi’s visor.
Good for Spanish tourism, great for Calatrava’s reputation, but maybe not so good for science itself. Like many planetaria, its been reduced to showing nature flicks and IMAX movies to make $ eg March Of The Penguins. Maybe its just us, but there seems to be an inverse correlation between the number of planetariums in a country and the level of science…perhaps due to something such as over-exposure breeds indifference.
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They need to marry the two…whenever they build a facility like this, have one section devoted to tourist entertainment, and another section devoted to hardcore research.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a planetarium showing IMAX movies, as long as it devotes a certain number of hours per week to its main purpose.