Bright green waves of laser light will ripple across the Hayden Sphere in the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space to illustrate how the Hubble Space Telescope analyzes distant galaxies, quasars, and other celestial objects in the early universe. The public art installation, From the Distant Past: Decoding the Light of Hubble will pulse from 5 pm to 11 pm each day, showcasing a unique convergence of science and art.
Created by German artist Tim Otto Roth in collaboration with astronomer Bob Fosbury, the former head of the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, the installation resembles the squiggly line of an electrocardiogram. This luminous pattern is based on data captured by Hubble's spectrometers, advanced instruments that act like prisms, separating light from the cosmos into its constituent colors. This provides a spectrum "fingerprint" of the object being observed, which tells scientists about its temperature, chemical composition, and motion, all key indicators in understanding the development and age of the universe.
The laser installation is presented to ring in the exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, which opens on Saturday, November 19. For more information, visit amnh.org
From the Distant Past: Decoding the Light of Hubble is funded by the Space Telescope Science Institute and the European Space Agency.
WHEN 5-11 pm, Monday, November 14-Sunday, November 27, 2011
WHERE The laser installation can be best viewed from 81st Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.
http://www.amnh.org/
