WALSH: Seeking a starry night? Head into planetarium
It's an embarrassing story, so let's say my wife was driving one night long ago on a dark highway in Connecticut.
As our car rounded a curve, a fast-moving light loomed in our windshield, seemingly headed right for us. We swerved out of the way — then realized we were trying to avoid a shooting star that was unlikely to hit earth, let alone us.
Apparently, we're not experts on the night sky. And we're not alone.
"More people believe in astrology than astronomy," laments Lloyd Black, a Rowan University instructor who hopes to address that imbalance with an event today at the Glassboro school.
"It's not good."
Black will help stage Astronomy Night at Rowan, a kickoff event for the Philadelphia Science Festival. The program will offer free shows in the school's 100-seat Edelman Planetarium, as well as — weather permitting — a half-dozen telescopes for public use on the rooftop of Science Hall.
Also available: a $100,000 research telescope that protrudes through a dome atop an observatory.
"You get so much detail, particularly with the moon," Black says of the view through a telescope.
"All of a sudden, it's like you're in an orbiting spaceship. You see big lava plains and craters all over the place, including craters on craters."
Black also wants to promote Rowan's planetarium, which features an upgraded, $235,000 projection system.
"Even today, 10 years after its opening, too few residents seem to know of its existence," he notes.
Maybe that's because the admission fee is astronomical. (OK, tickets are actually a very affordable $3 to $5; I just couldn't resist that joke's gravitational pull.)
But candidly, things aren't looking up for local stargazers. Light pollution bleaches out the skies, so casual observers might see only a hundred or so stars on an average night, along with a few planets and the moon.
Sky watchers must travel to remote areas — deep in the Pine Barrens or in remote Cape May County, for instance — to marvel at the Milky Way.
In a dark enough area, Black says, "You can see so many stars that even recognizable constellations like Orion's Belt or the Big Dipper can be hard to make out."
We're also surrounded by a thick cloud of skepticism. A recent poll found 51 percent of respondents lacked confidence in the Big Bang theory, the scientific explanation for how the universe was created some 13 billion years ago.
Now a lot of evidence supports the scientific view. But folks, I can't put it more simply than this: If the universe isn't expanding, explain my waistline.
And finally, for a really dark view, consider this:
"We only have about 500 million to 800 million years left," says Black, who teaches in Rowan's physics and astronomy department.
By that time, he says, an increasingly hot sun will have caused our oceans to boil away. And many, many trillions of years after that, the universe will simply go dark.
"The protons will have decayed," Black explains to anyone who knows what a proton is. "The stars will be burned out."
And from that perspective, he adds, here's all you must know to truly understand the universe:
"Do what you need to do today."
Jim Walsh's column runs Fridays. Reach him at jwalsh@cpsj.com or (856) 486-2646.
If you go
• As part of Astronomy Night, Rowan University's Edelman Planetarium will hold shows at 7 and 7:30 tonight to introduce viewers to the current night sky. Weather permitting, telescopes will be available from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. atop Science Hall. Visit philasciencefestival.org for more information.