Happy 1st Birthday to the Shanghai Astronomy Museum!
Note: The feature on the Shanghai Astronomy Museum (SAM) below was collectively written by the staff of SAM and upon their own request, we did not include their individual contributors.
The Shanghai Astronomy Museum is a branch of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. It is located in Lingang Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. Covering an occupied area of 58,000 m² with a total floor area of 38,000 m², the museum is now the largest astronomy museum around the world in terms of building scale.
Centering on a vision of “shaping a complete view of the universe”, SAM strives to arouse people's curiosity and encourage them to feel the starry sky, to understand the universe and to ponder the future. The main exhibition area of the museum consists of three sections, "Home", "Universe" and "Odyssey ", providing a panoramic view of the vastness of the universe and creating a journey of multi-sensory exploration to help visitors shape a complete view of the universe.
A Wonderful Birthday
Shanghai Astronomy Museum celebrated its first birthday on July 17th. As world’s largest Planetarium in terms of building scale, the museum has embraced 730,000 visitors in the past 12 months. Its Wechat official account has got more than 1,500,000 followers and received 8,900,000 hits. The museum hosted 90 live streaming activities in the past year and received 47,000,000 views. SAM has already become one of the most popular venues in Shanghai.
On July 17th, there was a special 12-hour live streaming consisting of several activities to celebrate the first birthday of the museum. “Sun Today” showed the real-time images of the Sun from Sixty-Five-Centimeter Self-Adaptive Solar Optical Telescope. With the help of advanced optical planetarium, “Sky Tonight” showed the vivid starry sky of that day. “Star Navigation” gave audience a guided tour about the astronomy history. In the activity named Astro Talk, Zhiqiang Shen, the Director of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory was invited to give a lecture on the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. There were also other activities such as an online lecture for kids, slow TV and a guided tour about Double Focus Switchable One-Meter Telescope. All these activities gave audience a panoramic view of the Museum.
As a new venue, SAM has been actively participating in seminars and activities organized by ASPAC throughout the year. Last October, Dr Lin Qing, the head of the Exhibition Designing Department introduced the vision, function, architectural features and five highlights of SAM on Share-2-Learn Session, and many counterparts expressed their hope to visit SAM after the epidemic. Meanwhile we’re looking forward to the future collaboration with ASPAC friends.
Regular Registration now ongoing for the ASPAC ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN BURSA, TURKEY!
This year's ASPAC Conference will be in Bursa Science Center inTurkey from October 5-7 (with Oct 4 as the pre-conference and Oct 8 for the field trips). The theme is "The Role of Science Centers and Museums in Culture and Change." One of our keynotes is a neuroscientist, Dr. Pireeni Sundaralingam, who will blow your mind with the latest insights about how our brain is coping with all the modern upheavals in being human. A detailed description of her keynote will soon be found in our ASPAC conference 2022 website. We encourage everyone to consider going in this first in-person annual conference since 2019! If you can come, it will be our form of strong affirmation that amidst all the very tough challenges in the world now on all fronts, the work we do will help us change ourselves and the world for the better and therefore, worth all the time, energy and resources we devote to it. Click here to register! *
Taxidermy videos from NSM Thailand now on YouTube!
Remember our January feature on NSM and their taxidermy exhibits? You can now know more about them in their YouTube videos. Please watch the videos and learn more about how "life" can come after death. :)
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and IF YOU LOVE TO WRITE...: Whatever your role in your organization, if you love to write, please send me your article on whatever it is you think would be worthwhile to share with ASPAC. I cannot predict or limit what that will be as there are so many connections between our work and the rest of what others in the world are doing, This is especially ripe in these strangest of times. We are excited to see your insights! Please send me your piece and we will see how it fits in our ASPAC human story. We are excited to unearth the evolving pool of ASPAC writers! Thank you!