By IANS,
New Delhi : The Nehru Planetarium in Delhi, which was closed for renovation since April, will open for public from Friday, just two days ahead of the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games.
The planetarium, renovated at a cost of Rs. 11 crore, will be inaugurated by Nehru Memorial Museum and Library executive council chairman Karan Singh.
It will run several programmes during the Games to attract visitors.
“There are a number of interesting activities that will be made available to visitors at the planetarium during the Commonwealth Games. An exciting interactive exhibition has been installed in the planetarium foyer area by the National Council of Science Museums,” Nehru Planetarium director N. Rathnasree said Wednesday.
“The planetarium will be conducting live interactive shows for the visitors at specific times during Oct 3-14. One segment of these live shows will be aimed towards astronomy education and celebrating the skies, while a second segment of the live shows will be celebrating the city of Delhi.”
Several other fun-filled activities are also planned at the planetarium during the mega sporting event. An interaction session with the first Indian in space, Rakesh Sharma, is also planned at the planetarium later this month.
Explaining the new features at the planetarium, Rathnasree said: “We have put up a new Definition Optical star projector, called MEGASTAR, which can show two million stars, including a detailed Milky Way image.”
“The nearby galaxies are visible with such detail that they are best viewed with binoculars. Working with the optical projector, a stunning new Definition digital projection system takes audiences on fantastic journeys to the edge of the known universe,” she said.
Nehru Planetarium will run some new shows — ‘Chandra : A Stellar Life’, ‘Ultimate Universe’, ‘Dawn of Space Age’ and ‘Awesome Light’.
The planetarium, housed in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) complex at Teen Murti Marg, was closed in April for a period of six months to carry out renovation work. The renovation work was carried out by the National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata.
Opened in 1984, Nehru Planetarium runs programmes aimed at astronomy education.