How many in the audience are absorbing the demonstrator's explanation of positive and negative electrical charges is hard to say. In the Hayden Planetarium, where once there was just the sonorous voice of an unseen narrator to guide visitors around the starry simulated universe, now there is a costumed and exuberant actor playing the role of a giddy Galileo and calling up children in the audience to participate by acting the roles of stars. The movie tells how Shackleton and his 27-man crew survived two years in the frigid Antarctic when their ship, the Endurance, was trapped and crushed by pack ice. In 1999 and 2000, an IMAX production team retraced and recreated Shackleton's epic journey on film, and these new images of the harshest climate on earth are combined in the movie with the original still photographs of the Endurance and its crew made by Frank Hurley, the photographer for the expedition. The Museum of Science, Science Park, Boston is on O'Brien Highway between Boston and Cambridge.
Hours are Sat.-Thurs.
Galileo's Odyssey alternates with Welcome to the Universe and with laser rock shows in the Hayden Planetarium at the same prices as the Omni Theater movies. The Theater of Electricity shows are free with museum admission.