Check ignition, take your protein pills and put your helmets on...
Construction on the world’s largest planetarium began in Shanghai this week. The building will be located in the Lingang part of Pudong and will consist of a main building, a solar tower, a youth observation base and a public observatory.
The undertaking will cost an astronomical RMB528 million (US$80 million) and should be open to members of the public in 2020.
The infrastructure at the project is designed to be green, making use of solar power technologies and rainfall collection and purification.
The building looks Copernican in design, a theme befitting of the subject matter. The main building is elliptical in shape mirroring the orbital trajectory of planets and radial sidewalks spiral out in an approximation of a galaxy viewed from afar.
The director of the planetarium’s exhibition department, Lin Qing, said “Connecting humans and the universe is the exhibition theme of our planetarium. Visitors will enjoy the panorama of solar system and our galaxy, learn cosmic structure and theory and the history of human’s universe exploring. There are also special areas to exhibit astronomy in China.”
The exhibition’s specs will compete with the word’s leading planetariums in developed countries. There will also be provisions for kids to camp out at the planetarium overnight in summer to observe the stars and sky.
[Image via Shanghai Daily]
