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FAMILY OF THE SUN Portraits of the Giants. Upon entering, visitors are greeted by spectacular images of the giant planets and their moons. An audio track of eerie sounds from Saturn sets the mood. Tools of the Trade. Visitors will peer through a replica of Galileo’s telescope to see Jupiter as he saw it. Giant Worlds are Giant. Scaled models of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune appear before an illustration of the Solar System. A beautiful schematic of the Milky Way galaxy shows where our Sun is located. Gravity Rules. This full-body interactive uses projections of visitors’ bodies to demonstrate how gravity both attracts and deflects masses and how bodies interact in the Solar System.

Solar System Formation and Crash Course. These short videos show how our Solar System formed and the role that the giant worlds played in Earth’s history during the Early Bombardment period. Scientists think that most of Earth’s water came from collisions with icy bodies.

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Friend or Foe. Visitors can place one or more giant planets into a gravity simulation that includes our Sun, Earth, and a swarm of icy bodies and try to get the icy bodies to collide with our planet. If a giant planet gets too close, watch out Earth. MEET THE GIANTS Planet Plunge. Using electro-mechanical controls, visitors create and launch virtual probes into Jupiter’s enormous atmosphere to better understand the crushing pressures within a planet made of gas. Light Probe. Astronomers use filters—colored plates of glass—to isolate very specific wavelengths of light and highlight different details on a planet, such as cloud height. Visitors can turn a filter wheel to see how Jupiter’s Great Red Spot looks in different wavelengths of light. Seeing the Unseen. Our eyes see only a narrow range of the light filling the Universe. However, special instruments allow us to detect light waves that we can’t see, such as infrared, which corresponds to heat energy. Visitors can compare what their image looks like in infrared and visible light, and explore these two wavelengths of light with various materials. Equatorial Bulge. Visitors turn a handle to spin two model planets. They can easily see that the equatorial bulge of one of the planets increases as the spin rate increases. They learn that scientists can tell what is going on inside a planet by how much it bulges. Moon Dance. Why is Jupiter’s moon Io the most volcanically active world in the Solar System? The answer is the flex heating caused by an orbital resonance. An electromechanical activity demonstrates flex heating resulting from the push and pull of gravity. An audio-visual

device illustrates how resonance works when several Galilean moons periodically line up. Cosmic Light Show. A looping video presents spectacular high-definition images of aurorae on Earth from an IMAX film called SolarMax.

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Magnetic Attractions. Aurorae are caused by charged particles in a planet’s magnetosphere. These particles also move in very strange ways in a magnetic field. Visitors use a pinball launcher to control both the direction and speed of virtual particles. After a few practice rounds, they try to get their particles to move along Jupiter’s magnetic field all the way to the polar regions and “light up the poles.” Planet Rings. All four of the giant planets have rings. Visitors can learn what causes them and explore Saturn’s spectacular rings on a 37-inch monitor. Extreme Seasons. Visitors manipulate a virtual orrery—a device that shows the relative positions and motions of planets around a sun—to better understand the reasons for seasons on both Earth and Uranus. Occultation. The rings around all of the giant planets, except Saturn, are invisible. Visitors can use the device to learn how the light from a distant star can be used to detect the presence of an invisible ring. NEW FRONTIERS Giant Worlds Odyssey. Visitors take a journey to the outer Solar System on board the Odyssey spaceship. The tour to the four giant planets and some of their moons includes a gravity assist from the Sun and a bumpy ride through the asteroid belt. Mission Teams. Visitors get to hear from several members of the Juno mission team about their experiences and work on this upcoming mission to Jupiter. A large photomural shows the many activities required to send a spacecraft to another planet. As the leader of the mission says, teamwork is absolutely necessary for success. What’s Next: Missions of Tomorrow. At a multimedia station, visitors learn that we are still planning missions to explore the outer Solar System. This includes NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter (expected to launch in August 2011) and future missions to Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Titan. Planet Challenge. Up to three visitors can play an action-packed trivia game based on information presented in the exhibition.