" In Search of Cosmic Life " (1/2/2018 - 31/10/2018)

Nature-loving Selena takes a field trip to the countryside with her elder brother Sunny, an engineering freshman. Under the starry sky, they met SPM-1, a mysterious robot that seems to know everything about life science.

It may seem absurd for a robot to tell humans things about life, but we owe robots for their explorations of potentially habitable places in the Universe, and discoveries of organic substances which are the building blocks of life.

In our newly produced Sky Show "In Search of Cosmic Life", audiences will appreciate the uniqueness of the Earth for life to flourish, and will examine those celestial bodies which scientists have found liquid water or organic compounds. Liquid water is essential to life because it is the medium for most of the biochemical reactions, and the occurrence of organic compounds in space may be a hint that life could exist elsewhere than Earth. Audiences will also hear different views of scientists on whether extraterrestrial life could ever be found. Space missions such as Stardust, Kepler and OSIRIS-REx will also be introduced.

So what is your take on cosmic life? Yea or nay?

DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid, is the genetic materials in living organisms. Its characteristic double helix shape not only provides structural stability, but the presence of two complementary strands also makes exact DNA replication possible. By using only four chemical substances, namely adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C), 1.5 gigabytes worth of genetic information of human can be encoded. If all DNA in a single human cell is stretched out and placed end to end, the length is approximately two metres long! Were it not for this exquisite mechanism of storing genetic information, life as we know it would not exist.

Oceans exist beneath the surfaces of some icy moons of gas giants in the Solar System. For instance, it is estimated that the subsurface ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa is almost a hundred kilometres deep, holding more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

Over 100 carbon-containing molecules have been found in space, ranging from simple formaldehyde to complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. One type of these organic molecules which attracts scientists' attention is amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins which are so essential to life that muscles, hormones and enzymes are made of proteins. Stardust spacecraft has discovered the simplest amino acid known as Glycine in the comet Wild-2.

By monitoring the brightness of over 150,000 stars in a patch of sky in the constellation Cygnus, Kepler Mission has confirmed that there are more than 2,300 exoplanets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Some of these exoplanets are of size similar to Earth and are in just the right orbits around the central stars that allow liquid water to exist.

 

Show Period :	1 February 2018 to 31 October 2018
Place :	Stanley Ho Space Theatre
Admission Fees :	Front stalls $24, Stalls $32 (Standard) Front stalls $12, Stalls $16 (Concession) - Concession is applicable to full-time students, people with disabilities (and one accompanying carer), and senior citizens aged 60 or above - Children under 3 years old will not be admitted
Duration :	30 minutes
Show Schedule :	Please refer to Stanley Ho Space Theatre Show Schedule
Ticketing :	Please refer to "Ticketing Information"  - Advance booking up to one week is available - URBTIX Internet Ticketing : http://www.urbtix.hk  - Telephone credit card booking : 2111 5999 - Ticketing enquiries: 3761 6661