ArticlePlanetarium

The World Clock is perfectly precise, perfectly symmetric, and perfectly beautiful. In other words, it's a perfect man-made object - and, as such, it strikes as being somewhat cold and even faintly aloof. One to be admired and celebrated but not interacted with. Visually compelling, it's less than visually engaging as it deflects one's attempt to fathom its perfection. As opposed, the whole exhibition of Copenhagen Tycho Brahe Planetarium is extremely both observer - and user-friendly.

It's easy to praise and enjoy the Planetarium's cutting-edge IMAX movie theatre, but the actual exhibition is not less fascinating - even though its subject, astronomy, is not exactly intuitive. So, intuition is helped by visuality. Various moons are on display, and one can clearly see how drastically different they are when it comes to just about every physical characteristics - shapes, sizes, colours... The Asteroid Belt is equally vividly shown, but the real cherry on the cake is a hands-on lottery-wheel-like device, where spinning balls represent cosmic bodies - and the pattern of the balls' movement replicates the corresponding bodies' behaviour under gravity. Quite an experience that is easy both to understand and to remember. If so inclined, right before leaving the exhibition, one can peruse facts related to Brahe-inspired four observatories, including the one in Upsala...