Solar Max

Every 11 years the sun’s poles reverse with unimaginable violence. The peak of the storm is called a solarmax. Now you can experience the hot phenomena in the cool comfort of the Planetarium through the breathtaking giant screen adventure, SOLARMAX. For the first time, audiences around the world will be able to look directly at the sun and see it as never before, through the eyes of the large-format film camera. The film uses computer data generated by the Solar and Heliospheric Observer (SOHO), providing audiences with a spectacular sense of actually being there.

The film examines man’s quest throughout time for knowledge about the awesome vastness and mysterious power of the sun – portraying a star that is peaceful yet dangerous. When Director John Weiley and his crew began developing SOLARMAX, they received incredible access and cooperation from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The large format screen presented a huge canvas to display the images of their work and an incredible opportunity to bring solar science to the public. NASA and ESA turned over all four solar arrays to the film team to generate the data for the giant screen. The team collected data for 28 days, a full solar revolution, to create realistic images and enable audiences a rare, up-close glimpse of the nearest star. In addition, crews traveled to Peru, Aruba, the United States, England, Norway, Poland, Antarctica, Greenland, Australia, Spain and Japan; literally trekking to every continent to build the story of exploration of the sun.

SOLARMAX allows viewers to vividly experience the sun’s power and beauty like never before. Audiences will soar on the wings of NASA’s pathfinder solar-powered aircraft as it climbs to a record height of 80,000 feet and witness BP SOLAR’s solar energy collector, the world’s largest solar energy plant. Enlightening and exciting, SOLARMAX will amaze viewers with the true­to­life story of the modern day heroics of NASA and ESA engineers as they recover the lost SOHO satellite from the depths of space and resurrect the billion-dollar portal to the sun. Show time is Saturdays at 3 p.m.

Total Running Time (approx): 40:00 minutes