| Date | Title | Short Description |
| Sunday, January 15 | From Earth to the Universe | The night sky, both beautiful and mysterious, has been the subject of campfire stories, ancient myths, and awe for as long as there have been people. A desire to comprehend the universe may well be humanity's oldest shared intellectual experience. Yet only recently have we truly begun to grasp our place in the vast cosmos. To learn about this journey of celestial discovery, from the theories of the ancient Greek astronomers to today's grandest telescopes, we invite you to experience From Earth to the Universe. |
| Sunday, January 22 | Phantom of the Universe – The Search for Dark Matter | Phantom of the Universe showcases an exciting exploration of dark matter, from the Big Bang to its anticipated discovery at the Large Hadron Collider. The show reveals the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term "dark matter." It describes the astral choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda galaxy and then plummets deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine.
From there, it journeys across space and time to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, speeding alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter. |
| Sunday, January 29 | Out There - The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds | For thousands of years, humankind thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. Thanks to our curiosity, imagination and urge to explore, we now know that planets like our Earth are not special in the cosmos. The Sun is just one ordinary star among hundreds of billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way. With the world's most powerful telescopes, we explore more and more of the Universe. What we have found so far has surpassed even the wildest expectations of scientists as well as authors of science fiction. Most stars have planets — it turns out they are more common than we thought. A huge diversity of worlds is Out There, just waiting to be discovered. |
| Sunday, February 5 | Two Small Pieces of Glass – The Amazing Telescope | Two Small Pieces of Glass – The Amazing Telescope show follows two students as they interact with a female astronomer at a local star party.
Along the way, the students learn the history of the telescope from Galileo's modifications to a child's spyglass — using two small pieces of glass — to the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the future of astronomy.
Aiming to engage and appeal to audiences of all ages, the show explores the wonder and discovery made by astronomers throughout the last 400+ years. |
| Sunday, February 12 | The Sun – Our Living Star | The Sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived. It is our nearest star and our planet's powerhouse, the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life. The passage of the Sun's fiery disc across the sky — day by day, month by month — was the only way to keep track of time for countless past civilizations. Don't be fooled by the terminology; although it is a typical dwarf star, the Sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all the planets combined. Discover the secrets of our star in this planetarium show and experience never-before-seen images of the Sun's violent surface in immersive fulldome format. |
| Sunday, February 19 | Rising Star — A South African Astronomy Journey | Rising Star takes you on an astronomical journey from our beginnings through the development of astronomy research in South Africa and looks at what the future of astronomy holds for the country. In addition to introducing multi-wavelength and multi-messenger astronomy, it highlights the many remarkable facilities hosted in South Africa along with some of their latest results. This includes unrestricted views of the 10-metre class Southern African Large Telescope and the most powerful radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, MeerKAT. The film is accessible to all ages and aims to excite audiences from around the world about South African astronomy, while inspiring the next generation of astronomers. |
| Sunday, February 26 | The Dark Matter Mystery - Exploring a Cosmic Secret | What holds galaxies together? What are the building blocks of the universe? What makes the universe look the way it looks today? Researchers worldwide try to answer these questions. We know today there is within the universe is a mysterious glue: Dark Matter. We know that it is out there. But we have no idea what it is made of.
The show takes you on the biggest quest in modern astrophysics. You will see why scientists acknowledge the existence of dark matter. Join them on their hunt for Dark Matter with experiments in space and deep underground. Will they be able to solve the Dark Matter Mystery? |
| Sunday, March 5 | Europe to the Stars | Europe to the Stars takes the viewer on an epic journey behind the scenes at the most productive ground-based observatory in the world, revealing the science, the history, the technology and the people. Discover the European Southern Observatory in a story of cosmic curiosity, courage and perseverance; a story of observing a Universe of deep mysteries and hidden secrets, and a story of designing, building and operating the most powerful ground-based telescopes on the planet. The show focuses on the essential aspects of an astronomical observatory, while offering a broader view of how astronomy is done. From site-testing to locate the best places in the world for observing the sky, to how telescopes are built and what mysteries of the Universe astronomers are revealing. |
| Sunday, March 12 | Seeing! A Photon's Journey Across Space, Time, and Mind | Follow the journey of a single photon as it is produced in a distant star, before travelling across the vast expanse of space to land on someone's retina. This fulldome planetarium show explores some of the fascinating processes of the cosmos, from astrophysics to the biology of the eye and brain. Funded through a generous grant from ZEISS, the show is narrated by astronomer and science communicator, Neil deGrasse Tyson. |
| Sunday, April 2 | Sunstruck | Travel back to the beginning of time and experience the birth of the Sun. Discover how it came to support life, how it threatens life as we know it, and how its energy will one day fade away. |
| Sunday, April 16 | Unveiling the Invisible Universe | For thousands of years the humans observed the light coming from the night sky with their eyes. In the beginning of the 17th century, the invention of the telescope by Galileo revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe. Finally, in the 20th century with the advent of rockets, it became possible to go above the earth's atmosphere and observe X-ray and gamma ray radiation which are the marks of the hot and violent Universe. But it is not only light that can give us information about the cosmos. Neutrinos and cosmic rays also provide vital information. Finally, the detection by the LIGO experiment of gravitational waves from two merging black holes opened a new window in astrophysics. This video presents images of the cosmos as revealed by all these different messengers. |
| Sunday, April 23 | Fragile Planet: Earth's Place in the Universe | Fragile Planet combines scientific visualization with movie-making magic, highlighting Earth's special place in the universe as the only known haven for life. Develop a renewed appreciation for our fragile planet through the lens of astronomy, as Sigourney Weaver guides audiences on an immersive excursion that explores a universe filled with the possibility of life. Fragile Planet starts with an astronaut's view highlighting Earth's unique regions. The journey then continues to the Moon, Mars, and beyond the Milky Way to search for habitats that might host extraterrestrial life. The show's theme — that Earth is the only known haven for life, and thus is important to protect — echoes the themes of biodiversity and sustainability. |
| Sunday, April 30 | Back to the Moon for Good | The show, narrated by Tim Allen, starts by presenting the history of lunar exploration over more than half a century.
The landers and orbiters taught us about the Moon's composition, geology, and formation.
The Google Lunar XPRIZE was designed to democratize space and create new opportunities for human and robotic presence on the Moon. We see the engineering and innovation steps taken by the international teams competing to land a spacecraft on the Moon. The program highlights the human spirit of competition and collaboration as teams take on this audacious challenge. The audience is taken through a successful launch, landing and lunar surface travel. The show ends with a stunning glimpse of a plausible scenario for our future on the Moon. |
| Sunday, May 7 | The Hot and Energetic Universe | The Hot and Energetic Universe uses immersive visualizations and real images to present the achievements of the modern astronomy, the most advanced terrestrial and orbital observatories, the basic principles electromagnetic radiation and the natural phenomena related to the High Energy Astrophysics (HEA).
HEA reveals processes in a hot and violent universe as it probes the hot gas in clusters of galaxies (the most massive objects in the universe) or the overheated gas accreting onto supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The high energy radiation provides important information about our own Galaxy, neutron stars and supernova remnants, and stars like our Sun. |
| Sunday, May 14 | Forward! To the Moon! | We are the Artemis generation!
We're going back to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation of explorers: the Artemis Generation. Kari Byron from Crash Test World and MythBusters launches us on a journey beyond the Earth towards a sustainable future in space. NASA's 21st century Artemis program, named after the Greek moon Goddess and twin of Apollo, is the next step in our mission to explore the universe and land the first woman and person of color on the surface of the Moon. |
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