Picture courtesy Science Museum / Jaron Chubb
A major new exhibition tracing the history of astronomy and the way people around the world have studied the universe across the centuries opens at the Science Museum on July 23 2009.
Timed to coincide with International Year of Astronomy and the 400th anniversary of telescopic astronomy, Cosmos & Culture: How Astronomy has Shaped our World will feature a series of fascinating interactives and exhibits.
Among them will be a facsimile of the first ever drawing of the moon through a telescope by Thomas Harriot together with his original moon map of 1610. Visitors will also be able to see a range of telescopes including the one invented by William Herschel, the composer who discovered Uranus and became the most celebrated astronomer of his day.
"Astronomy is a consistently popular subject with visitors and the Science Museum's astronomy collection is one of the best in the world, with many objects not having been seen by the public before," said Alison Boyle, the Science Museum's curator of Modern Physics.
"Illustrated through object-rich displays and multimedia resources, this exhibition explores our endless fascination with astronomy throughout history, how it has shaped our world and changed our perception of our place in that world today."
Picture Science Museum / Jaron Chubb
Divided into three sections – astronomical technology, evolving cosmological theories and astronomy and everyday life – many of the rare objects will come from the Science Museum's world leading astronomy collection.
Visitors will be taken through the history of the telescope, from early models developed by Galileo and Newton to modern space-based technologies such as the Hubble Space Telescope.
The exhibition will also provide a rare opportunity to see an actual space telescope in the form of the Jet-X telescope, which had been due to fly on the cancelled Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma international mission.
The show forms part of the Science Museum's centenary celebrations and coincides with a summer space season running throughout July 2009, which will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings, including family events, a mini sci-fi film festival, space-themed Lates and highlights in the Exploring Space gallery.
