A new Mars rover is scheduled to land this week, and the Strasenburgh Planetarium is running presentations about the red planet with its new Digistar projection system, which can provide images like never before.
"[It creates] an image that fills the dome, so you can feel like you are in space floating next to Mars," Planetarium Director Steve Fenress said. "We can really appreciate the size, the three-dimensional texture, zoom out and get a feel for how big the solar system is."
The presentations include with tours of the canyons, craters and volcanoes on Mars, and the selected landing site.
"It’s (the rover) got to slow down from 12,000 miles an hour to zero in seven minutes. It has to do it automatically, because a one-way signal from here to Mars is 11 minutes,’’ Fentress said. "So by the time we get the signal that it has reached the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere, it will already be on the ground one way or the other.”
Fentress says visitors to the Planetarium for the 2:30 p.m. Thursday show will be invited to stay to watch live coverage from NASA for the scheduled 3:30 p.m. landing.
He adds they’re not sure if they’ll get live images from Mars for the landing, but they’ll be looking in on mission control and get the signals the rover is sending back to earth as it descends towards the surface, including signals if the rover lands successfully.
He says a limited number of socially-distanced visitors will be allowed to attend, and face masks will be required.