She Scribes

“Journey to the Stars” is an incredible journey through space and time, from the beginning of the universe to our present day. This visually stunning show offers the audience 3-D representations of the stars and planets which truly gives you the feeling that you are floating through time and space.

Academy award winner, Whoopi Goldberg, lends her voice to the narration of “Journey to the Stars”. She was the perfect choice! She did an amazing job.

“Journey to the Stars” took three years to research and plan for and over eighteen months to put together. The information presented in the twenty two minute long journey was complied from the research and observations from 40 leading scientists in the United States, NASA, Germany, Japan and Mexico.

The journey begins 13 billion years ago when our first stars were born. You will witness the incredible supernova explosions that sent new kinds of atoms coursing through the universe. These new atoms came together to create new stars, planets and eventually some of these very same atoms ended up in our own bodies and in the air that we breathe. Take a moment to reflect upon what I just said. Billions of years ago atoms from exploding supernovas were blasted through the universe. These atoms helped to create our our Earth and from our Earth the human race was born. If it wasn’t for stars we would not be here today. I never gave that any thought until I saw the “Journey to the Stars”.

I was in awe over how the first stars grew quickly and died equally as fast. While you are witnessing this above you in the audience you will see bursts of light which represent another star that was created and died rapidly and ended up as a “White Dwarf” until it eventually died out. The presentation even discussed the existance of a “Brown Dwarf” which I have never heard of before.

“Journey to the Stars” shows the audience how our very own star, the sun, was formed. I learned a bit about our sun when I was in school but to actually see it happening before my eyes really gave so much meaning to everything I learned.

I knew that the brilliant lights seen at the North and South Poles (Aurora Borealis) had something to do with solar wind. After learning more about our sun from this presentation I was finally able to truly understand more about the solar winds.

Eventually our sun will die out. It will balloon in size before it dies out. Everyone knows that our sun is already massive in size but according to the presentation the sun will become so massive that it would be like comparing the size of a golf ball (the current size of the sun) to a basketball (it’s expanded state before it dies out). Fascinating!

I will not give away everything that was discussed during this amazing show but I will tell you this, you will NEVER look at the sun or the stars in the sky the same way again. I was so taken with “Journey to the Stars” that I felt compelled to give a standing ovation (I didn’t, but I sure wanted to!).

It was an honor and a privilege to listen to the honored guests prior to the start of the show. We heard from the President of the American Museum of Natural History, Ellen Futter. Also in attendance was Lika Guhathakurta who is one of the lead scientists in the Heliophysics Division with NASA. Her job at NASA is to study everything about our Sun. That must be such an interesting career.

Neil Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, also spoke prior to the presentation.

Mordecai-Mark Mac Low and Ben Oppenheimer, the Curator and associate Curator (respectively) of the Astrophysics Division of Physical Science also spoke.

Listening to these amazing and influential people speak made me really wish that I paid more attention in science and math. Perhaps if I did I would be as brilliant at these men and women are.