December 11, 2013

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Dark Energy, Dark Universe

Last week, I was delighted to visit one of my favorite places in NYC, the American Museum of Natural History. Over a decade ago, I served as a Fellow with the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, and it stands out as one of the best ‘jobs’ I’ve had.

By Sheril Kirshenbaum

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Last week, I was delighted to visit one of my favorite places in NYC, the American Museum of Natural History. Over a decade ago, I served as a Fellow with the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, and it stands out as one of the best 'jobs' I've had. You cannot run out of things to do and I love how there's always something new to discover. A highlight of the day was the new space show, Dark Universe, written by Timothy Ferris and narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Every experience I've had at the Hayden Planetarium has been memorable, but Dark Universe raises the bar. From the comfort of my seat, I marveled at images of cosmic phenomena in deep space. Dark energy fascinates me, but my expertise is well outside of astrophysics and I've always found the concept rather enigmatic. This show does a very good job of taking this extremely complex topic and explaining it in a way that's accessible to general audiences. Through spectacular visualizations, I was able to get a sense of the way it's kind of like our cosmic architecture. I learned that invisible dark matter and dark energy accounts for at least 95% of the universe’s total energy and mass!

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Dark Universe is a must-see for anyone interested in science and space visiting Manhattan. Further, it makes me confident that Neil Degrasse Tyson's 2014 Cosmos will certainly be worth watching...

Sheril Kirshenbaum is executive director of Science Debate, a nonpartisan org working to get presidential candidates on record on science policy. She co-directs Michigan State University's Food Literacy and Engagement Poll and hosts the NPR podcast Serving Up Science.

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