Virtual Reality Tour Lets You Walk Through Space Up Close

Imagine standing on a planet where diamonds form on the surface while lava flows around your feet, then watching a star explode right before your eyes.

That's exactly what Smithsonian Starstruck offers when it launches June 12 in Washington, D.C. The virtual reality experience takes viewers on a 40-minute journey through space, from the scorching surface of our sun to the edge of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.

Every cosmic scene comes directly from real scientific research by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and astronomers worldwide. On the exoplanet Janssen, viewers can pick up and toss diamonds into molten lava, based on actual evidence that the planet's extreme heat and pressure could create diamonds on its surface and possibly even form its core.

The experience showcases instruments that push the limits of human engineering. The Parker Solar Probe ventures into 1,700-degree heat to touch our sun, protected by a carbon shield while its instruments, made partly from synthetic sapphire, glow red as they measure solar wind particles.

"Starstruck is like a documentary that you can walk through," says Elliott Mizroch, the experience's director. Viewers watch the star Betelgeuse explode as a supernova, releasing as much energy in a fraction of a second as our sun will emit in its entire lifetime.

The Ripple Effect

The VR tour gives people a visceral sense of scale that's nearly impossible to grasp from photos alone. The Hubble Space Telescope appears the size of a school bus floating nearby, while the James Webb Space Telescope's sunshield stretches out as large as a tennis court.

At the experience's climax, viewers stand at the event horizon of Sagittarius A*, our galaxy's central black hole. The scene recreates the historic "orange donut" images captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of observatories working as one.

Participants can even push light from their hand toward the black hole and watch it change colors, witnessing an actual phenomenon that would occur near such extreme gravity. The visualization shows objects stretching as they get pulled inward, making abstract physics concepts suddenly real and understandable.

After debuting in D.C., Starstruck will open in about 30 cities worldwide, bringing the universe within reach for anyone curious enough to put on a headset and explore.