Speaker: Max King, University of Toronto In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, photographing the last unexplored major body in our solar system. Taking over 25 years from its original conception to its phenomenal photographic fly-by, New Horizons upended the space industry. We will explore the story behind the most unlikely expedition into our solar system, the development of the mission from scrap paper to the spacecraft itself.

After five years at the helm, Randy Attwood has announced that he will step down as the Executive Director of The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. To celebrate Randy’s tenure, we are hosting an open house on October 26th.

Albert Einstein predicted a century ago the existence of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of spacetime moving at the speed of light. It was believed that these ripples were so faint that no experiment would ever be precise enough to detect them. But in September 2015, LIGO did exactly that. The teams working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in Louisiana and Washington measured a loud gravitational wave signal as it traveled through the Earth after a billion-year journey from the violent merger of two black holes.

Please remember to dress warmly because it will be cold tonight.

Raise your beakers! The Science Centre turned 50, and we’re inviting you to celebrate with us. Featuring the all-new MindWorks—an innovative Science Centre original exhibition exploring memory, creativity, emotions and the mind’s inner workings with virtual reality, a large scale obstacle course and a mega multiplayer decision-making competition.

Researchers from around the world work out of the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah and the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island, Nunavut, to prepare for human exploration of Mars.

Our understanding of the motions of stars within our Milky Way and of the many small galaxies that orbit around it has changed dramatically over the past few years owing to new observational surveys and significant advancements in our understanding of galaxy structure.

Come see the planets as you've never seen them before! On September 14, join us for our second annual Planet Gazing Party with telescopes, prizes, stars and planets. Starting at 7:30pm, we'll have telescopes set up to view Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. Come see mountains and craters on our own Moon in spectacular detail. Talk to astronomers and telescope enthusiasts and get all your space questions answered. Take a selfie with our gigantic Moon globe and play trivia games to win great prizes.

The Bentway brings the Moon under the Gardiner with a presentation of Museum of the Moon – a seven-metre wide touring sculptural work by UK artist Luke Jerram, which fuses lunar imagery to bring the moon’s surface to life on earth.

Is space ours to explore and conquer at any cost? Who gets to decide who colonizes space? And how do our journeys into space inform the way we see ourselves, and the way we treat our home, Earth? Artist Pamela Neil, AnishinaabeKwe social innovator Melanie Goodchild, and observational astrophysicist Renée Hložek present Our Manifest Galaxy, an oral performance designed to bring the audience squarely into the conversation about space exploration.