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Pasadena Museum of California Art Announces Beneath the Surface: NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter

The Pasadena Museum of California Art presents Beneath the Surface: NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter an exhibition on view September 18, 2011 – January 20, 2012.

The Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) announces Beneath the Surface: NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter, an interactive art installation created by Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) and its Visual Strategist, Dan Goods, which brings the Juno spacecraft and its mission to life. Inspired by the technology used in the mission, the PMCA’s Project Room will be covered in a vast layer of fog, beneath which infrared light that is invisible to the naked eye, will create forms that can only be seen through the assistance of a screen, such as on a cell phone camera. Just as the Juno mission is peering beneath the top clouds of Jupiter to understand its internal structure, museum visitors will be able to “see” another world of light beneath the surface.


Image Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Juno spacecraft launched on August 5, 2011 and will arrive at Jupiter five years later. The spacecraft will then spend more than one year orbiting the planet to investigate the existence of an ice-rock core. Jupiter is a gas giant, comprised of thick clouds all the way to its core with no surface on which to land. When Juno arrives, its instruments will allow, for the first time, humanity to see through the top layer of clouds and into its internal structure, which, among other things, causes the unusual storms that are visible on the surface. This will help us understand how giant planets like Jupiter are formed, which in turn help us understand how solar systems are formed. One of its main tasks is to figure out how much water the planet has. If the amount of water in Jupiter is determined, it will unlock our understanding of the history of water in the solar system. Beneath the Surface: NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter will help the public understand the processes of the spacecraft.

This project is a featured component of AxS Festival 2011 | FIRE and WATER. AxS Festival 2011 continues the Pasadena Arts Council’s biennial celebration of Pasadena’s remarkable heritage as ―The City of Art and Science.‖ AxS Festival 2011 explores the eternal, elemental themes of FIRE and WATER — epic forces that continue to inspire and terrify us in equal measure – forces that not only have shaped and defined the physical and psychic landscape of our region, but which continue to resonate powerfully through the events of the day and in the persistent cultural artifacts of our scientists and artists. This year the AxS Festival is designed to showcase this rare alchemy of FIRE and WATER with two weeks of art, dance, music, theater, performance and provocative conversation.

For information, the please call 626-568-3665 or visit the website: www.pmcaonline.org

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