The Adler Planetarium and The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

The Adler Planetarium is a cool building that sits on the shore of Lake Superior.  It was a great day because we were able to learn about the universe by watching movies. The movies were shown in rooms shaped like a dome so the movie surrounded us, and made it feel like we were in space.  My favorite movie was called Planet Nine which was about a planet that they just recently theorized existed. Scientists think that they have discovered a new planet in the outer reaches of our solar system. They found this out when they studied the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a belt of meteors and asteroids, some roughly the size of Pluto, and some much smaller that are orbiting the outer reaches of our solar system.  While most of the objects in the Kuiper Belt have a circular orbit some of them orbit in the shape of

an egg.  This wouldn’t seem strange if the oblong orbit was inconsistent, but all of the objects orbited in the same general direction, so scientists said, “What the heck?”  The only explanation they could come up with is that there is a small planet, but still significantly larger than Pluto pushing the few irregular objects out of their orbit. They have not found anything in their satellite imaging that proves Planet Nine’s existence, but they are still scanning. If the computer simulations are correct it should only be visible for a very short time every couple years. This makes it hard to find especially since we don't know exactly where it will be. We watched about five other movies that were all very good, but I'd fall asleep if I tried to describe them all.

I liked the Museum of Science and Industry a lot more than the Franklin Institute, but mostly because I got to stand in a tornado.  When I first got in to the museum I immediately knew two things: first I was going to love it, second I knew my dad would find several dozen ways to turn it into teachable moments.  Naturally when I got in I wanted to beeline for the physics and forces section because I wanted to study up and learn all that I could.  OK no. I only wanted to go there because I could stand in a man made tornado and launch tennis balls out of an air powered bazooka across the room.  My parents made me go to the patterns in nature section, which basically was going on and on about how butterflies wings look like corn, and that a shell is a spiral.  

Mirror Maze

My favorite part of the museum was the mirror maze. I'm not even sure what it had to do with patterns in nature, but it was a lot of fun. I eventually gave up on getting through the maze for two reasons.  First of all, I was assuming at this point that there was no exit, and they were just playing with us. Secondly, if I stayed in there any longer I would have gotten a concussion from slamming into so many mirrors. At one point my dad and I were trying to find each other and ended up both slamming into mirrors because we thought that the other one was in the complete opposite direction. Then when we finally turned around I almost poked him in the gut because I had chosen to keep my hands out the entire way back. I also photo bombed about 30 people because in the mirrors it was pretty much impossible not to. I thought that there was a huge group right in front of me trying to take a picture, so I said, "Hold on, let me get out of your way." I backed up and ended up ramming into one of the people who I thought was in front of me. Looking back on it I realized it was pretty stupid. I should've noticed something was up when I saw myself next to the people in the mirror, but by that point I think I'd already suffered mild brain damage. 

After we were done with the patterns in nature we went into the chemistry section. It wasn't super interesting in terms of bright flashy things that you could poke and spin, but this is where my dad got in most of the teachable moments of the day. After a while we decided to let him roam around while I went down to the part I had been thinking about all day, the tornado.  Before I got down to it there were a few other things I needed to try out. There was a section that demonstrated light refraction by having you make a prism rotate and get the rainbow where you wanted it. There was also a part where you could control how big a fire got and sprinkle green glitter in it. I'm not entirely sure what that was about, but it was still pretty cool. In addition there were these little chambers that you could go in that claimed they had 80 mile an hour winds. Let me tell you - not even close. It felt more like 5 miles an hour at the most. I was hoping it would be something where you got pushed up against the wall, but no such luck.  Remember how I talked about the tennis ball bazooka earlier? It turns out they could even turn that into something involving math and physics. First you had to figure out what angle and speed you wanted the ball to go at.  You were trying to make it so you hit a certain target. It was impossible to completely miss the other basket, but you had to have it almost perfect to hit the target. They made it so you could only shoot it at 27° or above at a max of 25 miles an hour, but it was still fun to watch it fly around. There was also another launcher on the other side of the room so you could shoot it back and forward. The tornado was one of my favorite things I did here. It was a 20 foot tall cyclone of water vapor that got kicked up from a pad

underneath and spun up by the winds coming from the sides. By the time I got out my shoes were squeaking and my hair felt like I had just taken a shower. It smelled really weird in the vapor, but the woman operating it told me that it was just on an off day, so the water smelled really funky.
Next Stop: Minuteman Missile