Bakersfield residents of all ages filed into the William M. Thomas Planetarium at Bakersfield College on Feb. 18 as Professor Nick Strobel began “Ice Worlds,” the first planetarium show of the spring semester.
“The show I do is a sort of combination,” said Strobel. “In the first part I do a tour of the night sky, so that part will be live, then after that is a full dome film.”
According to Strobel, “Ice Worlds” is a film that shows the different places where ice exists in our solar system. “It was a newly produced show, and it had some new results from the different space missions.
“[‘Ice Worlds’] had a really good concentration on what was happening here with the earth, as far as what’s happening with climate change and the effect on the poles,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know what a big deal that is, and this provides a very nice way of showing that along with some beautiful imagery.”
Strobel’s tour of the night sky consisted of pointing out some of the constellations, stars and galaxies visible in our night sky, and giving some background information on them before starting the film.
Audience member Albert Luevano, 63, said “I really didn’t know the constellations, but he pointed them out and how to locate them, which was good.”
Luevano went on to say that he thought every part of the show was great. “It was a complete show, it gives an explanation of what we’re going through presently, and the concern we ought to have as far as the planet.”
Bakersfield College student and geology major Chaz Ingram, 18, said, “It was really great, it was full of information and it was fascinating.”
Ingram first heard about the show from Strobel, who teaches Ingram’s astronomy class. He said his favorite part of the show was learning about how the climate is changing and how it can affect our future.
For Nadienne Phua, 19, a pre-nursing student at CSUB, it was the information from the “Ice Worlds” film itself that was the most fascinating.
“I have seen a small documentary on other worlds and this topic mentioned that, so it added a little depth to what I’ve learned about before,” she said.
The film talked about taking core samples from the polar ice caps and how history shows itself in the layers of ice that were formed over millennia. “It’s pretty amazing to think we can look twice as far back as our existence,” she said.
Due to recent budget cuts, the planetarium shows have now been moved to Thursday evenings instead of Friday evenings this spring.
According to Strobel this may be the reason why ticket sales weren’t as high as they usually were.
“They said as of this morning there were about 25 tickets left, which is unusual for a planetarium show, usually we sell out,” he said.
“I came alone today because I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, otherwise I would’ve brought the kids,” said Luevano. He later added that he plans on bringing his kids to the next planetarium shows.
There will be two new shows this semester, one each in March and April, and a repeat of “Ice Worlds” in May. According to Strobel, the next show will follow NASA’s new Interplanetary Boundary Explorer mission or IBEX mission.
“The spacecraft orbits the earth, and it is able to probe particles reflected by the sun’s magnetic field,” said Strobel.
The show in April is titled “Black Holes” and is Strobel’s personal favorite. It will be a film that explores various black holes found in our universe including a computer-simulated dive down into the black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
“It’ll be the best, most accurate view we’ve ever had of inside of a black hole,” he said. Both Ingram and Phua said they will definitely be back for the black holes show.
More details about upcoming shows, as well as a full schedule and ticket information, is available on the Planetarium’s Web site at www.bakersfieldcollege.edu/planetarium.