Our full-dome planetarium transports visitors across space and time in a variety of amazing adventures. Voyage to the furthest reaches of our galaxy to examine black holes, stars, and planets; travel back in time to investigate ancient civilizations; or visit the deepest parts of our oceans and explore an active coral reef!

The Space Theater shows are included in general admission and DHDC membership. Seating capacity is 90 people per showing.


Monday, Wednesday, Friday, & Sunday

11:00 am – Max Goes to the Moon
1:00 pm – Navajo Skies
3:00 pm – Let It Snow

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

11:00 am – Mysteries of Your Brain
1:00 pm – Forward to the Moon
3:00 pm – Let it Snow

Max Goes to the Moon

34 minutes

Are you (or your kids) excited about NASA’s Artemis Program for return to the Moon? There’s no better way to get prepared than with this first book in the Max Science Adventure Series. In this fictional story, Max (the dog) and a young girl named Tori take the first trip to the Moon since the Apollo era. Along the way, the story sets the stage for the more sophisticated science of the “Big Kid Box” sidebars, which cover topics including “Phases of the Moon,” “Wings in Space?,” and “Frisbees and Curve Balls on the Moon” — all thoughtfully explained so that grownups and children can learn together about science. Toward the end, Max and Tori’s trip proves so inspiring to people back on Earth that all the nations of the world come together to build a great Moon colony from which “the beautiful views of Earth from the Moon made everyone realize that we all share a small and precious planet.

Watch the Trailer

Navajo Skies

32 minutes

Watch and listen to a Navajo Indian family teach their children and grandchildren about the Navajo night skies, through story and music, in a traditional Navajo Hogan (home). Learn how Coyote tossed up a blanket full of crystals, creating stars and chaos in the Universe.

NOTE: According to traditional Navajo protocol, cultural stories of the Night Sky, including stories of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, can be told only during the winter months. However, at midsummer, a shorter version of the stories can be shared for educational or healing purposes, during the time of the Summer Solstice and during the two weeks following the Summer Solstice.

NAVAJO SKIES is a full-dome animated star-show featuring authentic Navajo astronomy stories told in Navajo and English, with traditional Navajo songs and Native American flute music. The show was created and recorded on the Navajo Nation.


Let it Snow

30 minutes

Let it Snow is a festive light show for the holidays, featuring a variety of classics from Frank Sinatra and Chuck Berry to Burl Ives and Brenda Lee, and includes a stunning finale by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  The soundtrack is visually enhanced with thematic animation, immersive special effects, and fulldome scenery.

Warning: This show contains some dizzying effects. It is not recommended for individuals prone to motion sickness, seizures, or light sensitivity.

Watch the Trailer

Mysteries of Your Brain

22 minutes

Jump into an animated adventure following a girl and her crow companion as they explore what makes the human brain so special. Together you’ll zoom along the paths of neurons, find out how human and animal brains differ, and experience illusions on a grand scale!  Along the way, you’ll learn how your brain makes you, well, you, and see that ultimately, we each have the power to change our brains.

The Bell Museum collaborated with the University of North Carolina Morehead Planetarium and Science Center to create this planetarium show. The work was made possible through generous support from the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and Boston Scientific.

Watch the Trailer

FORWARD! To the Moon

26 minutes

Kari Byron from Crash Test World and MythBusters launches us on a journey beyond the Earth toward a sustainable future in space. NASA’s 21st-century Artemis program, named after the Greek moon Goddess and twin of Apollo, is the next step in our mission to explore the universe.

Watch the Trailer

Past Showings

Unveiling the Invisible Universe

28 minutes

For thousands of years humans observed the light coming from the night sky with their eyes. In the beginning of the 17th century, the invention of the telescope by Galileo revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe. Finally, in the 20th century with the advent of rockets, it became possible to go above the earth’s atmosphere and observe X-ray and gamma ray radiation which are the marks of the hot and violent Universe. But it is not only light that can give us information about the cosmos. Neutrinos and cosmic rays also provide vital information. Finally, the detection by the LIGO experiment of gravitational waves from two merging black holes opened a new window in astrophysics. This video presents images of the cosmos as revealed by all these different messengers.

Watch the Trailer

Flight Adventures

20 minutes

Discover the science of flight through the eyes of a young girl and her grandfather as they explore how birds, kites, planes and models fly.

Watch the Trailer

Europe to the Stars

30 minutes

Europe to the Stars takes the viewer on an epic journey behind the scenes at the most productive ground-based observatory in the world, revealing the science, the history, the technology and the people.

Watch the Trailer

Two Small Pieces of Glass

23 minutes

A visually stunning chronicle of the history of the telescope from the time of Galileo, its profound impact upon the science of astronomy, and how both shape the way we view ourselves in the midst of an infinite universe.

Watch the Trailer

The Hot and Energetic Universe Movie Poster

The Hot and Energetic Universe

30 minutes

The planetarium documentary “The Hot and Energetic Universe” presents with the use of immersive visualizations and real images of the achievements of modern astronomy, the most advanced terrestrial and orbital observatories, the basic principles of electromagnetic radiation, and the natural phenomena related to high-energy astrophysics. High-energy astrophysics plays a key role in understanding the universe. These radiations reveal the processes in the hot and violent universe. High-energy astrophysics probes hot gas in clusters of galaxies, the most massive objects in the universe. It also probes hot gas accreting around supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Finally, high-energy radiation provides important information about our own galaxy, neutron stars, supernova remnants, and stars like our Sun, which emit copious amounts of high-energy radiation. Europe plays a leading role in high-energy astrophysics research. The XMM-Newton and the Integral missions are leading the exploration of the X-ray and gamma-ray universe. ESA‘s mission ATHENA, to be launched in 2028, will carry the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever, and it will be the flagship of all high X-ray missions.

Watch the Trailer

Phantom of the Universe – The Hunt for Dark Matter

28 minutes

Phantom of the Universe: a free planetarium show that showcases the exploration of dark matter, from the Big Bang to galaxies to the Large Hadron Collider.

The show reveals the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term “dark matter.” It describes the astral choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda galaxy and then plummets deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine.

From there, it journeys across space and time to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, speeding alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter.

Cosmology

35 minutes

How did the universe begin, and how is it evolving? Explore some of the big questions in this original show produced by the Casper Planetarium and narrated by Michael Stevens of Vsauce.


Out There

30 minutes

The story of how human curiosity has driven us to look outwards to discover and explore new and distance worlds.

Watch the Trailer

Mayan Archaeoastronomy

20 minutes

In a feast of colours and sounds, Mayan Archaeoastronomy: Observers of the Universe makes a tour of 6 Mayan temples: San Gervasio, Chichen Itzá, Uxmal, Edzná, Palenque and Bonampak where the spectator dives into a Mayan world of knowledge about the importance of the orientations of its temples in relation to the movement of some stars like the Sun, the Moon and Venus.


Voyage to Distant Worlds

38 minutes

A tour of the planets in our solar system. Discover facts you never knew about our neighboring worlds.


Secret of the Cardboard Rocket

40 minutes

Adventure through the solar system in the Cardboard Rocket! Travel with two children and their navigator, the talking astronomy book. Visit the Sun, the planets, the Moon, and more.

*The narration track was edited in 2007 for the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet. References to “smallest planet,” “ninth planet,” and “last planet” were removed, and Pluto is simply termed a planet in view of it being a new category of planet.

Watch the Trailer

From Earth to the Universe Movie Poster

From Earth to the Universe

30 minutes

The night sky, both beautiful and mysterious, has been the subject of campfire stories, ancient myths and awe for as long as there have been people. A desire to comprehend the Universe may well be humanity’s oldest shared intellectual experience. Yet only recently have we truly begun to grasp our place in the vast cosmos. This stunning, 30-minute voyage through space and time conveys, through sparkling sights and sounds, the Universe revealed to us by science. Viewers can revel in the splendor of the worlds in the Solar System and our scorching Sun. From Earth to the Universe takes the audience out to the colorful birthplaces and burial grounds of stars, and still further out beyond the Milky Way to the unimaginable immensity of a myriad galaxies. Along the way, the audience will learn about the history of astronomy, the invention of the telescope, and today’s giant telescopes that allow us to probe ever deeper into the Universe.

Watch the Trailer

Saturn the Ring World

22 minutes

Saturn is the true “Lord of the Rings”. After nearly seven years in transit, the two-story Cassini-Huygens spacecraft began orbiting Saturn on July 1, 2004. Cassini continues to explore Saturn and its moons during its extended mission, while the Huygens probe had landed on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The Cassini Saturn encounter began with a flyby of Saturn’s farthest moon, Phoebe. See Saturn up close and all-around-you inside our dome theater.

SATURN THE RING WORLD is narrated by Star Trek’s John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox on ENTERPRISE) and was produced by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Watch the Trailer

Sunstruck Movie Poster

Sunstruck

20 minutes

Travel back to the beginning of time and experience the birth of the Sun. Discover how it came to support life, how it threatens life as we know it, and how its energy will one day fade away.

Watch the Trailer

Zula Patrol Movie Poster

Zula Patrol

30 minutes

A research mission gone awry, an interplanetary villain and a tour of the solar system are all featured in this animated full-dome film based on the award-winning PBS television series. Viewers join the Zula Patrol as they gather samples of weather for scientist Multo’s research. As the Zula Patrol attempt to stop Dark Truder’s nefarious plan to become ruler of the universe, visitors will explore and compare the types of weather found on each planet in our solar system and discover the elements which combine to create weather.

Watch the Trailer

Expedition Reef Movie Poster

Expedition Reef

35 minutes

Embark on a journey into the hidden world of coral reefs in this all-digital planetarium show exploring some of our planet’s most biodiverse—and critically threatened—ecosystems. Dive into the heart of the Academy’s iconic Philippine coral reef tank as thousands of tropical fish flutter by. Travel the globe to explore coral reefs teeming with life and learn how scientists are racing to develop sustainable solutions to protect these vitally important ecosystems for the future. Along the way, discover how corals live, breathe, and reproduce, supporting a quarter of all marine life on Earth and providing critical benefits to human communities in our ever-changing world.

Watch the Trailer

Dark Matter Mystery Movie Poster

The Dark Matter Mystery

38 minutes

What keeps Galaxies together? What are the building blocks of the Universe? What makes the Universe look the way it looks today? Researchers all around the world try to answer these questions. We know today that approximately a quarter of the Universe is filled with a mysterious glue: Dark Matter. We know that it is out there. But we have no idea what it is made out of.

This fulldome planetarium show takes you on the biggest quest of contemporary astrophysics. You will see why we know that Dark Matter exists, and how this search is one of the most challenging and exciting searches science has to offer. Join the scientists on their hunt for Dark Matter with experiments in space and deep underground. Will they be able to solve the Dark Matter Mystery?

Watch The Trailer