Header Image: Lauren Asta (left) and Shawn Smith (right) pose with their completed “Moonshot Murals” painted by Adler guests during Moon Bash on July 20, 2019 Brushes were poised and the smell of spray paint began to permeate the air. The sound of the small metal ball inside the aerosol can rattled around as the […]

Learn about what’s in the sky for the month of September 2019 from the Chicago area.

If you receive a letter from me, it will likely end with my favorite call-to-action, “Keep Looking Up.” And, while some have interpreted this phrase to have optimism as its intention, I have a much more literal request in mind. Look Up. Yes, you. Right now. I’ll wait… Chances are you noticed something you hadn’t […]

One of the year’s most popular meteor showers regularly peaks this month, August 2019. Unfortunately, this year’s shower may be only a wash.  The Perseid meteor shower is well known because it’s a major annual shower that occurs during warm weather in the northern hemisphere. The Perseids usually peak around the night of the 12th […]

Header Image Caption: An artist’s rendition of Enceladus, Saturn’s 6th largest moon. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech This past weekend, the Adler Planetarium celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11⁠—a mission that brought us to a whole new world, our Moon.  It’s pretty undeniable that our Moon is spectacular. It’s our only natural satellite, it’s composed of […]

Imagine you are called into a meeting about a job. The job is completely different from any job you’ve ever had. It’s not an anxiety dream—this is really happening!—so you do what any responsible, awake person would do: You tell the other people in the meeting you have no idea how to do this job. […]

Dr. Andrew Johnston Vice President of Astronomy and Collections As someone who has worked in museums for the past 30 years (WOW!), what has been the most rewarding experience for you? I began working in science museums when I was a teenager, so I feel very lucky to have been working in this business all […]

Header Image: This is probably the first Moon rock picked up by Neil Armstrong as part of the “contingency sample.” Because the collection was so hurried and the documentation sparse, NASA scientists are not completely sure of the identification. Credit: NASA The Apollo missions sent humans to the Moon 50 years ago. Getting there required […]

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced a seemingly impossible goal of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. “We choose to go to the Moon,” he declared. Eight years later the unthinkable would be proven possible. On July 20, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 mission would touch down on […]

Header Image: Moon surface taken by the Adler’s Doane Observatory on April 7, 2017. The nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission this month, July 2019. It was 50 years ago on July 20 when humans first set foot on Earth’s natural satellite. It’s a big month for the Moon astronomically as well. This […]