The planetarium has come up with yet another new show titled, "To The Land Of The Midnight Sun", this summer. The show takes the audience on an enchanting voyage to the Arctic and the Antarctic with brief stopovers at some of the interesting places on the Earth. The journey starts at midnight on the longest day in the northern hemisphere briefing about the changes that take place in the sky all the time. The central point of discussion always remains the position of the pole star and the visibility of the Sun. Throughout the programme there are some interesting astronomical and other anecdotes that enlivens the journey allthemore. After a short sojourn in the Antarctic, the journey ends at Jaipur after almost a 40,000 km. trip around the Earth. With geographical and astronomical tit-bits the programme entertains as well as educates the audience about some of the wonders of the nature. The programme is presently being screened at 11, 3 & 6 pm.

Worlds in Collision

It had never been a smooth ride since the first life forms got their foot hold on this planet. Recent beliefs tend to support the theory of panspermia : transportation of life forming complex compounds like amino-acids to Earth riding on comets or asteroids. Whatever be the beginning, it had never been a smooth ride since the first life forms made this planet their home. Periodically, new life forms had flourished on the Earth and repeatedly with remarkable periodicity these had been vanquished forever, never to breathe on this planet again. Perhaps, these mass extinctions were caused by violent events of nature, e.g. comet or asteroid strikes, wide spread volcanism etc; or perhaps, they perished due to normal environmental changes. The latest among the vanquished life forms are the dinosaurs - the giant reptiles. About 65 million years ago, they perished forever. Probably, it was a giant meteor strike, probably, it was something else that took out such a mighty species. In fact, given enough time scale, large catastrophes are the order of the day. The present day creation and even our existence on the Earth have became possible because of those successive violent cosmic events that took place long long ago.

Such events do take place still now. Can we protect ourselves and our future generations from such catastrophes with the help of our technological prowess ? The programme launched in June 2006 is presently being screened at 1, 5 & 7 pm.