The attraction of Black Holes is more than just gravitational. These mysterious graveyards of dead stars have fascinated generations. “Black Holes” explores the history, physics, and mystery of these reality-bending phenomena. Experience the bending of light, the skewing of perception, and the dizzying descent into a black hole.
Following the show, guest lecturer Dr. Henning Haack will be giving a presentation on the geology of Mars, and the search for prior life.
NASAs latest rover Perseverance and its reconnaissance helicopter, Ingenuity, have explored an ancient crater lake on Mars for over a year now. It is heading for a large river delta, at the edge of the crater lake, where life may have thrived when Mars was warmer and wetter. Henning Haack will talk about the rover’s discoveries during the past year and the plans for the coming years when the rover arrives at the delta. Visitors will be able to look at actual rocks from Mars from the Maine Mineral and Gem meteorite collection.
Henning Haack received his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Copenhagen, and did postdoc work at the Planetary Geosciences division at the University of Hawaii and at the Institute of Physics in Odense. He has served as an Associate Research Professor at the Danish Center for Remote Sensing and curator for the Geological Museum at the University of Copenhagen. He has searched for meteorites in numerous locations including the Antarctica, Cape York, and the blue ice fields in Greenland. He has received a number of honors including the University of Copenhagen’s Gold Medal, The United States Congress Antarctic Service Medal, and has an asteroid named in his honor (Asteroid 7005 – Hennighaack). He currently is an Associate Researcher at the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel and teaches at ScienceTalents in Denmark.
Tickets for planetarium programs are $7 for Adults, $6 for UMaine Students/Veterans/Senior Citizens, and $5 for children under 12. Click here to view the Versant Power Astronomy Center calendar.
Tickets may be purchased online, by phone at 207.581.1341, or at the Versant Power Astronomy Center ticket box office prior to the show.
