3. The Largest Planetarium in the Western Hemisphere is in Liberty State Park

Liberty Science Center

City dwellers don’t get to enjoy the beauty of a star filled sky when night falls, but a short trip across the river can provide a substitute for that experience. The Liberty Science Center, a 300,000-square-foot learning center in Liberty State Park, is home to the largest planetarium in the western hemisphere. The Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium and LSC Giant Dome Theater is exceeded in size by only four other planetariums in the world — two in Japan, one in China and one in Russia. The 89 foot, full-dome theater boasts a resolution of 88 million pixels, a lighting system that can produce over 281 trillion individual colors, and new speakers capable of producing 30,000 watts of digital sound.

Liberty Science Center

The planetarium and theater currently show live planetarium shows, films, and laser shows. The LSC’s signature live-planetarium show is Wonders of the Night Sky, a 45-minute adventure through the galaxy that shows viewers the Milky Way as it appears to the naked eye, NASA’s robot probes and arrays of telescopes from around the world.

Golden Record Mural in NJ

For more space exploration, head outside the museum to view the space inspired murals painted by local artist Sam Pullin under a bridge near the Light Rail. The murals were curated by Untapped Cities’ very own Mandy Edgecombe, a board member of the friends of Liberty State Park and co-author of this article, and were completed in conjunction with Jersey City’s mural program led by Brooke Hansson. The images were inspired by NASA’s Voyager Satellite mission and they depict the Voyager I satellite and the face of the Golden Record. The Voyager I satellite was launched in 1977 to study the outer planets of our solar system and is now the furthest man-made object in space. Aboard the Voyager Satellite is the Golden Record, the result of a project led by astrophysicist Carl Sagan to send a message into space. The record contains images and sounds of Earth such as music, multilingual greetings and a sound essay. The symbols etched into the record, which are seen in Pullin’s murals, are instructions on how to play the record and how to find Earth.

Visitors to The Liberty Science Center can also expect to find 12 museum exhibition halls, a live animal collection with 110 species, giant aquariums, a 3D theater, live simulcast surgeries, and hurricane-and tornado-force wind simulators.