The World's Wildest Telescopes

For as long as humans have existed, we have looked up at the night sky, filled with wonder and inspiration.

Over thousands of years, astronomy has evolved. New technologies and ideas have continuously emerged, but the greatest innovation came in 1609, when the astronomer Galileo Galilei became the first to turn a telescope toward the heavens.

The telescope revolutionised astronomy and expanded our horizon - not only toward the stars, but also in our understanding of our place in the universe.

Today, we have built numerous enormous telescopes all over the world and in orbit around Earth. These instruments observe the cosmos and contribute to our collective understanding of the universe we inhabit.

On this evening at the Planetarium, we travel the world and visit some of the largest and most famous telescopes. Our journey takes us to the Atacama Desert in Chile, the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i, the James Webb Space Telescope, and many more extraordinary places where brilliant scientists and ingenious engineers have built instruments capable of seeing back in time and out into the universe.

Experience space in an entirely new way as we explore it through data from the world’s most extreme telescopes. From Tycho Brahe’s observations of a supernova and Galileo’s first glimpse of Saturn’s rings to the Hubble Telescope’s breathtaking images of the cosmos.
 

We dive into how telescopes use the light from galaxies to investigate invisible dark matter, and why space telescopes are our most important tools in the search for alien solar systems. Finally, we explore how you build a telescope the size of Earth — and why scientists around the world are thrilled about a blurry image of a black hole.

Join us for an evening under the planetarium dome as we explore the universe in both visible and invisible wavelengths and uncover new galaxies where there was once complete darkness.

After the talk, we will screen Unseen Universe, created in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory. The film offers insight into how we continue to make groundbreaking discoveries using extraordinarily advanced observational technology.