The Black Hole Project

January 1st, 2004 - December 31st, 2007 | PROJECT

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is producing "Realm of the Black Hole," a one-hour high definition television program for the PBS science series NOVA and "Black Hole: The Other Side of Infinity," a twenty-minute full motion program for planetarium theaters. Both of these media products will draw upon a large-scale visualization effort conducted by leading scientists in collaboration with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The shows will examine the broad revolution now taking place in high-energy astrophysics by using scientific simulations and data-based animations to illustrate the life cycle of stars and the birth of galaxies. The two presentations will be supported by a website designed for use by the general public and by outreach materials and resources for teachers and informal educators. The media production will be under the direction of Thomas Lucas, President of Thomas Lucas Productions, Inc., and co-produced by Donna Cox, Professor, School of Art & Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Paula Apsell will be the Executive Producer for the NOVA program and Joslyn Schoemer will be Executive Producer for the planetarium show. The Science Advisors include Roger Blandford, Professor, Theoretical Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology; Laura Danly, Space Science Curator, Denver Museum of Nature and Science; Michael Norman, Professor, Astrophysics, University of California, San Diego; Harvey Tannanbaum, Director, Chandra X-Ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; and David Thompson, Astrophysicist, Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Project Website(s)

(no project website provided)

Project Products

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity - Summative Evaluation of Planetarium Show with Adults and Teens
Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity - Summative Evaluation of Planetarium Show with Students

Team Members

Thomas Lucas, Principal Investigator, Thomas Lucas Productions, Inc.
Joslyn Schoemer, Co-Principal Investigator, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Andrew J. Hamilton, Co-Principal Investigator
Donna Cox, Co-Principal Investigator, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Barbara Flagg, Evaluator, Multimedia Research

Funders

Funding Source: NSF
Funding Program: ISE/AISL
Award Number: 0337286
Funding Amount: 1149134

Tags

Audience: Educators | Teachers | General Public | Museum | ISE Professionals
Discipline: Space science
Resource Type: Project Descriptions
Environment Type: Broadcast Media | Media and Technology | Planetarium and Science on a Sphere