Creative And Destructive Force Of Cosmic Collisions

Experience a thrilling trip through space and time and witness the shattering impacts that drive the evolution of the universe when the Denver Museum of Nature & Science presents Cosmic Collisions at Gates Planetarium. Cosmic Collisions brings real science to life using a complex fusion of cutting-edge astrophysics research and state-of-the-art scientific visualization expertise.

The result is a three-dimensional ride through the universe where we encounter destruction-and transformation-on an awe-inspiring scale. The show was developed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in collaboration with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, and GOTO Incorporated.

Narrated by legendary actor Robert Redford, Cosmic Collisions presents a view of the cosmos that is radically different from our everyday experience watching the peaceful night sky. Collisions are commonplace occurrences in space and are currently understood by scientists as a key mechanism in the evolution of the universe. Cosmic Collisions depicts the explosive encounters that shaped our solar system, changed the course of life on Earth, and continue to transform our galaxy and the universe as a whole. They are the spectacular and inevitable result of gravity pulling together objects such as planets, stars, and galaxies, which are in constant motion through space. For the first time, Cosmic Collisions re-creates tremendous encounters that are usually invisible to us, either because they unfold over incredibly vast expanses of time and space, spanning billions of years and trillions of miles (as in the clash of galaxies), or because they occur almost instantaneously on a subatomic scale (as in the collision of protons in the heart of the Sun).

Cosmic Collisions offers a spectacular immersive theater experience for viewers, bringing real scientific research to life in a compelling way. Viewers will witness the violent face of our Sun, imaged by NASA satellites, that rockets enormous ejections of material toward our planet. The resulting subatomic clashes, as streams of charged particles from the Sun strike the Earth's magnetic field, produce the eerie glow of the aurora borealis. Cosmic Collisions also shows the creation of our Moon some five billion years ago when a wandering planetoid struck Earth; the violent meeting of two stars at the edge of the galaxy; and the future collision of our Milky Way galaxy with our closest neighbor, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, a cosmic crash that will produce a new giant elliptical galaxy billions of years from now.

Cosmic Collisions also hits a little closer to home by portraying the different ways the Earth has been impacted since its formation. Audiences will feel the ground shake beneath them as they experience a thrilling re-creation of the meteorite impact that hastened the end of the Age of Dinosaurs 65 million years ago and cleared the way for mammals like us to thrive. Another dramatic sequence highlights a frightening future scenario where humanity desperately attempts to divert the path of an oncoming "doomsday" asteroid headed on a collision course with our planet.

Gates Planetarium tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for juniors (ages 3 to 18) and seniors (age 65 and older). Cosmic Collisions will run through the end of 2007. -- www.dmns.org