Expedition Earth
In Summary
- The Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing has released a 2D version of its latest movie Expedition Earth
- Watch Expedition Earth online
- The new movie is suitable for everyone, with a focus on Year 7-12 school students
While we wait to resume our 3D AstroTours in Swinburne’s Virtual Reality Theatre, our Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing (CAS) has released a 2D version of its latest movie that can be viewed online.
“In our latest AstroTour movie, Expedition Earth, we journey through space in search of more planets like Earth,” says Swinburne Astronomy Online Coordinator, Dr Rebecca Allen.
“Our new movie is suitable for everyone, with Year 7-12 school students being our primary focus.”
Viewers can learn how to find new planets using inspiration from the past; and appreciate the power of the Kepler Space Telescope and how it discovered thousands of new worlds.
“We as humans have always been fascinated with the idea that our planet and species may be unique and that we have long been searching for other life in our vast Universe, says Dr Allen.
“The search for a world just like our own makes us question what is so special about our planet, and to appreciate how challenging it is to simply find worlds beyond our solar system and then to be able to characterise them.”
The movie runs for almost 13 minutes and took just over a year to create from draft story to the final animation.
Using innovative Virtual Reality technologies developed by CAS, AstroTours are designed to educate and entertain audiences about astronomy. The movies, animations and simulations used to explore the Universe are all produced by our in-house team of astronomers, visualisation researchers, animators, artists and programmers.