A live-action fulldome film that takes viewers on a journey to the North country to learn about the nature and wildlife of the regions within the Arctic Circle. Audiences see the expedition through the eyes of a grandfather telling a story to his grandson about a journey in search of a mythical fox. Show length: 19 minutes
Earth experiences hundreds of Earthquakes every day. Many are hardly perceptible. Some prove catastrophic. What causes earthquakes? Can we ever predict them? How can we prepare for future quakes? Show length: 26 minutes
Explore the coral reefs of planet Earth! We learn how coral reefs form, how they’re endangered and how scientists are working to rejuvenate bleached coral. One of the most beautiful programs we’ve ever offered! Show length: 27 minutes
Fragile Planet gives audiences an astronaut’s view of Earth, highlighting Earths unique regions. The journey then continues to the Moon, Mars, and beyond the Milky Way to search for habitats that might host extraterrestrial life. The show’s theme — that Earth is the only known haven for life, and thus is important to protect — echoes the themes of biodiversity and sustainability.
The visual foundation of the show lies in scientific visualization. From the high-resolution satellite imagery of Earth, the positions of galaxies more than 50 million light years distant, the three-dimensional terrain of Valles Marineris on Mars to the locations of extrasolar planetary systems in interstellar space, everything audiences will see in Fragile Planet has a basis in astronomers’ best understanding of the Universe. Show length: 25 minutes
Living networks connect and support life forms large and small—from colonies of tiny microbes and populations of massive whales to ever-expanding human societies. In the California Academy of Sciences’ latest original planetarium show, Habitat Earth, discover what it means to live in today’s connected world. Through stunning visualizations of the natural world, dive below the ocean’s surface to explore the dynamic relationships found in kelp forest ecosystems, travel beneath the forest floor to see how Earth’s tallest trees rely on tiny fungi to survive, and journey to new heights to witness the intricate intersection between human and ecological networks. Show length: 24 minutes
In “Incoming,” audiences will discover how asteroids and comets have collided with our planet throughout history, changing the course of life on Earth and shaping the world we know today. From the comfort of a planetarium seat, viewers will embark on a dynamic journey on the trail of asteroids and comets, get an up close look at the advanced technologies that allow scientists to detect asteroids before they reach Earth, and visualize historic space events billions of years in the making—all within an immersive, all-digital dome that brings the captivating story of our cosmic origins to life like never before.
Narrated by George Takei, Incoming! explores the past, present, and future of our Solar System and the landmark discoveries scientists have made by sending spacecraft to visit tiny worlds. Show length: 26 minutes
The deep sea is one of the most mysterious and little-explored regions of Earth. We know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the wonders hidden beneath the waves of our planet’s seas. The deepest parts of our oceans teem with life forms so strange-looking they could be from the realm of science fiction. These fantastic creatures inhabit a realm of underwater volcanoes, engulfed mountain ranges, and vast trenches cut into the crust of the planet. Into the Deep is a breathtaking journey of sea exploration originally created by Ogrefish FilmProductions, adapted and renarrated by Loch Ness Productions. It combines marine biology and underwater geology with a history of deep-sea exploration. Show length: 32 minutes
The show begins in a redwood forest, with the sounds of wind and life. One redwood looms large, until we approach its branches and enter one of its leaves, adjusting our perspective to microscopic scales inside a cell. We see a pared-down version of its inner workings, learning about the process of photosynthesis and the role of DNA. This scene sets the stage for the story of life.
We then leap backward billions of years to the origin of elements themselves. The early Universe contained mostly dark matter, which drew hydrogen and helium together to form the first stars. The carbon and heavier elements required by living organisms came from generations of stars.
We continue our journey, diving into the Milky Way Galaxy of several billion years ago. We approach a region in which stars are forming, where we encounter a protoplanetary disk surrounding our newborn Sun. We arrive at the young Earth, splashing down in deep water to visit a hydrothermal vent and to examine the formation of organic molecules. We then travel above a volcanic island to encounter an enriched “hot puddle” of water, in which nucleotides may have wrapped themselves in protective vesicles. Once life took hold, it radically changed our planet. Earth’s early microorganisms created our oxygen atmosphere—and may have also triggered a global ice age, causing temperatures to drop precipitously and nearly freezing out life on our planet. We continue leaping forward in time, viewing the movement of continents and the changing environment for life, until we reach modern Earth.
We return home to look at Earth once more, circling the modern globe to review the evidence for the story we have heard. Much of what we understand about evolution we have pieced together from the fossil record, but we can also reassemble evolutionary history by studying life that surrounds us today. All life shares a common ancestry and common chemistry, all related at the molecular level. As we learn this, we pull away from individual images of life, and we end the show as we see their three-dimensional distribution form the double-helix strand of DNA. The audience is left immersed inside a representation of the structure of life’s shared origins. Show length: 26 minutes
Earth is a planet shaped by life. From the forests that help stabilize our climate, to the winds carrying life-sustaining water and oxygen to far-flung parts of the globe, the fingerprints of life are visible even from many light-years away.
Living Worlds, an original planetarium show from the California Academy of Sciences, invites you to journey through space and time to examine life as an essential quality of our home planet.
The show takes you on an exploration of the co-evolution of life and our planet, revealing the ways in which life has transformed Earth’s surface and atmosphere over billions of years.
Along the way, you’ll see how light and color can help us spot a living world, even from great distances.
As we ponder what forms life might take in the Solar System and beyond, Living Worlds encourages us to consider how a deeper understanding of our own planet can aid in the search for life across the cosmos, and to reflect on ways we can partner with our living world to ensure our continued survival. Show length: 27 minutes
Wayfinders opens by telling the story of the spread of people out of Southeast Asia throughout the Pacific over thousands of years. They discovered thousands of islands and learned to move between them using only the signs of the natural world around them, including the stars. Eventually they reached the islands of Hawai’i and sailed vast distances back and forth from other islands. Around 600 years ago these long ocean crossing voyages to and from Hawai’i had all but stopped as the populations became self-sustaining. The knowledge and skill built over thousands of years faded from cultural memory into only legends and stories.
Fast forward to the 1970’s, when the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance was building after nearly 200 years of suppression by colonial powers. It was at this time that the Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded by native Hawaiian artist Herb Kane, sailor Tommy Holmes, and anthropologist Ben Finney in 1973. They designed and built a replica double-hulled canoe in the spirit of those used hundreds of years before. Their intention was to sail it to Tahiti and back in the wake of their ancestors, without modern navigation instrumentation. They named their wa’a (canoe) Hōkūle’a after the star of joy, also known as Arcturus. They asked Mau Piailug of the island of Satawal in Micronesia to be their navigator and he agreed, recognizing that the traditional art of wayfinding was in danger of disappearing entirely. In 1976, he successfully navigated Hōkūle’a across 2,600 miles, from Hawai’i to Tahiti without using modern instruments. Show length: 24 minutes