Mara Raquel Domingos Franco nº22953 E


“The Science Museum”


Do you only believe in hard proofed facts? Do you enjoy making experiments? Building things? And you think the scientific documentaries’ channels are the best? Then you might just be a nerd . . . a science nerd, that is, and if that is your case than the Science Museum it’s right up your alley.
Right at the entrance of this museum, we can see an enormous pendulum hanging from the ceiling moved by the Earth’s magnetic field. The Science Museum is divided in several museums like: the Natural History Museum (one dedicated to deers and another solely to dinosaurs); the Physics Museum and the Astronomy museum – my favourite and the one that I went to visit and that also includes a planetarium.
Walking towards the planetarium, we can see a lot of scientific instruments from all sciences and from all times like: the sextant (an old astronomical compass used by sailors); a hand-calculator (one of the early calculators that resembled very much to an old-like cash register); and old telescopes. Going through the hallway we can see pictures of famous astronomers (Ptolemy, Sir William Hershel, Vermeer, Copernicus), of the Milky way, of the Solar System and of the planets in it.
Along we can also find, a computer that narrates the curious case of the galaxy PDFJ011423, a galaxy full of exploding stars that contain enough power to obliterate us, a dark globe that by a press of a button lights up all the constellations on the night sky, and also the several phases of the moon and the pictures of the main eclipses occurred in Portugal.
Then we find the Physics Laboratory, where a lot of instruments are kept and interactive games are set in order for us to experiment and see some interesting uses and tricks of science, before we finally finish in the big, dark dome of the planetarium, where for an hour, an hour and half we can gaze into the stars and infinity of the night sky and the Universe.