Bakersfield College will be seeing an expansion to itself by next semester.
The BC planetarium is expected to be completed in June, according to professor Nick Strobel, who is in charge of the astronomy program.
Strobel explained that he had become involved in astronomy in the summer when he was between eighth and ninth grades, when the space probes were reaching Jupiter and Saturn. He said this event sparked his interest in astronomy, and that he had been hooked ever since.
The new planetarium will consist of a new star projector that can show more stars. It will be capable of displaying the sky from any location on Earth at anytime between 4,000 B.C. to 4,000 A.D. It will also have a “flight through the galaxy” simulation, 36-foot in diameter dome ceiling, where it will all be projected on, and a new 5.1 sound system.
Due to light pollution, astronomical research is rarely done in Bakersfield. The closest places that have astronomy research are the Mount Wilson observatory and Fresno State.
When asked how accurate these simulations of the universe would be, Strobel replied that it would be super-accurate. He explained how the all-dome video system would be able to display the motion of the stars with each other and calculate thousands of years beyond the present.
There will also be school trips for students in middle and elementary schools, where they will attend hour-long presentations about astronomy and the galaxy.Strobel said that one of the biggest pros to space exploration is the economical factor that once more money is spent on the space program, the more jobs are created, and more people who have an interest in space may later become scientists and engineers.
Strobel also stated that astronomy is an important science,just as medicine is, considering that like medicine, astronomy helps us to understand the world around us better, due to the face that the rules of the universe also apply to the Earth.