Visions of the Universe

Visions of the Universe Exhibition, The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

My father and grandfather are both space nuts and have telescopes, so I've grown up learning about the stars and spending late nights gazing into the heavens. I just find it completely fascinating, and also mind blowing. I can't get my head round the size of the universe, and how it began. I also love the hubble telescope, the pictures are so beautiful, its hard to believe they're real. So as soon as I saw the exhibition I knew I had to go.

The exhibition was stunning, and really well laid out, I loved how they showed the first ever images made of the subjects such as the moon or the sun, next to the most recent technologically advanced images. One of the show stoppers was the 13 metre long panoramic projection from NASA’s Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on Mars. Very eerie, as you watch it the landscape feels both familiar and alien.  The darkness and the sound effects playing in the exhibition is fantastic, it really made you feel detached from the outside world, and focused on the exhibition. I think this was a stroke of genius, and I wish more exhibitions would play a subtle soundtrack. The space was also used well, and although there were a lot of people I didn’t feel crammed in.

My favourite image is taken on the moon during the Apollo 11 expedition, and is looking back at the earth. The quote by Neil Armstrong that was put with the image really summed up the whole exhibition for me:

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."

Looking at the images on display reminded me that we are just a small planet, and a very unique one. It's so important that we look after it; it's very special blue dot in this big dark universe.