Into the Polar Night: MOSAiC Planetarium Show
Drifting North: Into the Polar Night
A film by Amy Richman
Step out onto an ice floe in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, and watch and listen as scientists race the fading light to set up one of the most ambitious international climate collaborations ever, MOSAiC. The Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate launched in September 2019. Led by the German Alfred Wegener Institute, the mission froze an icebreaker into the Central Arctic Ocean, to better understand the remote region and the role it plays in global climate and weather patterns.
Now, a 360-degree planetarium dome show, available free for institutions around the world, captures the first three months of the yearlong expedition, as darkness descends, storms swirl, and scientists work to gather data from this harsh and unforgiving environment.
This is a 2-D version of the show, produced because so many planetariums remain closed due to COVID. To view 3-D and VR versions of the show, please see Fiske Planetarium's YouTube channel. See here for a dome-ready version.
Funded by National Science Foundation grant no. 1839104
Related science curricula can be found here.
