404 ] Our Earth and Its Fellow Planets 



Seeing the Skies "Indoors" 



If it is at all possible, you will not want to miss the experience 

 of visiting one of the great planetariums. It is the best way for a 

 child to get a good basic understanding of our solar system and 

 the stars that surround it. There are six planetariums in the 

 United States in Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, 

 New York, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 



When you enter a planetarium, your child will be curious about 

 the weird-looking instrument that stands on a platform in the 

 center of the domed room. This is the projector rather like a 

 motion-picture projector but far more complicated. The "show" 

 begins, the room is plunged into darkness, and the projector 

 throws on the rounded ceiling images of the stars and planets. As 

 these bodies move about in "the heavens," the speaker explains 

 their movements; inside an hour you may watch them go through 

 motions that would normally take days, months, or years. 



The sky may be pictured as it was at the birth of Christ or when 

 Columbus arrived in America; or it may be shown as it should 

 appear hundreds of years from now. As he looks on, the child 

 can feel a thrilling closeness to the distant past when intrepid 

 explorers guided their ships by the stars and peaceful shepherds 

 used the stars to tell time. He can feel, too, a comforting confidence 

 in the future as it becomes evident that though stars, moon, and 

 planets disappear from view, each in its own proper time will be 

 back again. 



