The Heavenly Science Of 'Cosmic Collisions'

Things that go bump in the dark is the theme of "Cosmic Collisions," the new 23-minute planetarium show that opens tomorrow at the National Air and Space Museum's Einstein Planetarium. Narrated by Robert Redford, the galactic drama surveys the power of colliding asteroids, errant space debris, cavorting galaxies and the excoriating forces of solar wind. And yet, as planetarium shows must inevitably do, it manages to find the bright side of all these traffic collisions in space.

The asteroid that spelled doom for the dinosaurs also cleared the landscape for the arrival of man. The sun, which toasts what would otherwise be an icy rock in space to the clement temperatures we mammals demand, is powered by a gazillion little collisions in its fiery core. And solar wind, which would otherwise strip off our atmosphere like a chemical peel, bounces off our magnetically charged Earth harmlessly -- and produces the beautiful aurora borealis, to boot.

The cosmos is a dramatic spectacle, and a reassuring one. Makers of the new show, which was originally produced for the Hayden Planetarium at New York's American Museum of Natural History, claim the input of more than 25 prominent scientists. It begins with a near miss by a comet and then explores the creation of the moon through a huge, planet-size collision some 4.5 billion years ago. After surveying the sun and the epic dinosaur-killing asteroid crash into Mexico some 65 million years ago, "Cosmic Collisions" jumps to the future, when man may be able to steer huge asteroids safely to the side of Earth. In any case, the writers assert, there's only a one in a million chance any year that an asteroid will strike us -- which makes a civilization-ending encounter more than 100 times as likely as winning the Powerball.

But never mind. Sit back in the comfy tilted chairs, enjoy the soothing music and marvel at how much these shows have changed in the past 20 years. Once upon a time, the planetarium was all about the stars, which were low-tech projections on the domed ceiling, while a fatherly voice talked you through astronomically tangible things, such as the North Star, the Red Planet, the belt of Orion and all the swans and grazing horses that appear in the night sky. The planetarium was an ideal version of the stars that anyone brave enough to endure a cold night or an attack of mosquitoes could see just by walking outside.

No more. The planetarium is now all about motion, about flying through the solar system, grazing the edge of the Milky Way and moving forward and back in time, as galaxies take form and wend their way through the ether. Individual stars are boring and static. What's needed is the speed of asteroids and comets, and the big perspective -- the view from 100 miles up, or a billion miles out.

Last week, the National Academy of Sciences showed historical cartoons, made for hygiene purposes, that depicted the interior of the body, the battles of bacteria and other germs, the ravages of infection and cancer, the silent decay of teeth. Those biology films seem risibly hokey today, but their visual program is similar to what planetariums do: The world revealed only by science is dramatized and visualized, making a scientific understanding that we mostly take on faith more tangible and credible. These visualizations often become the dominant paradigm for imagining complex scientific ideas.

These kinds of dramatization also come with a little extra data, a little cultural residue that gives clues about how scientists think of their place in the world. In "Cosmic Collisions," that arrives near the end, when we see a fantasy spaceship cruising next to a nasty-looking asteroid with Earth's name all over it. With luck, and mind you this is just a theory, the gravitational pull of the spaceship may be enough to drag that rock out of Earth's path. Redford's dulcet voice then suggests that maybe you, too, have a good idea about how we might preserve the planet from devastation.

Ah, one last refuge of science as an open place, a free market for good ideas, an all-comers-welcome world of theories and proofs and new theories. Science has become so politicized -- just Google "moon creation" and admire the richness of the creationist mind -- that it's oddly reassuring to be in a planetarium where faith in science (and the humbling and often hostile world it reveals) is absolutely unquestionable. The special effects may be Hubble telescope and Xbox fabulous, but the tone of the writing (low-key and admirably free of space-opera bombast) is refreshingly NASA-cool and can-do.

Planetariums have been around long enough that they have much the same appeal as merry-go-rounds and drive-in movie theaters. Of course, time doesn't stand still, and "Cosmic Collisions" is doing everything it can to appeal to a hyped-up new generation of visitors. But its strength, and the pleasure it will offer to many visitors, is its old-guard adherence to the traditional idea of the sublime: The grand narrative of cosmology is terrifying almost to the point of despair, yet the craving of our species to understand it is strangely inspiring. Good planetarium shows, and this new one is no exception, probe at the very things that make people turn to religion, but without any mention of God. In today's world, that's a rarity.

Cosmic Collisions is shown every day on the half-hour, from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (no 11 a.m. show on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday), at the National Air and Space Museum's Einstein Planetarium.