The University’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History @@http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/@@opened an exhibit fundamentally different from the traditional anthropological displays they are known for.
“Out in Space, Back in Time: Images from the Hubble Telescope” was unveiled on Feb. 8 of this year.@@http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/exhibits/hubble@@ The exhibit features crystal-clear prints of galaxies, nebulae, star clusters and space-related phenomena captured by the Hubble Telescope.
Denise Sorom, the marketing and communications specialist at the museum, said the exhibit emphasizes not only the sheer size of the universe, but demonstrates the notion that art and science are one and the same.
“Someone could walk in without any knowledge of space or the Hubble Telescope and simply appreciate the beauty of the images,” Sorom said. “A person with prior scientific knowledge could come in and still learn something about space they didn’t previously know.”
Samples of meteors, decals on the floor portraying the size of the solar system and hands-on models supplement the images as well.
“Kids love the interactive aspect of the exhibit. Simple and fun activities like this can give kids a broader understanding of science,” Sorom said.
According to Jules Abbott, education coordinator for the MNCH@@http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/education-and-events/summer-camps-clubs@@, visitors have enjoyed the exhibit thus far.
“People have liked this exhibit. Field trips especially have had fun,” she said.

The pictures for the exhibit were free of charge to the MNCH.
“We were able to curate these images for free from NASA,” Abbott said.
MNCH had the pictures enhanced and enlarged before putting them on display, creating beautiful centerpieces for the gallery.
Although securing the images was relatively simple, another aspect of preparing the show was seemingly difficult.
“Our biggest challenge was changing the language to the level of an 8th-grader’s vocabulary without dumbing it down.” Sorom said. “This is a topic that fascinates all ages. We wanted it to be accessible to everyone, and that meant taking complex physics and astronomy-related vocabulary and changing it up.”
University junior Ben Jackson@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Ben+Jackson@@ was in the museum on Wednesday for an class-related event and stumbled across the Hubble exhibit.
“These images are insanely fascinating. I’m walking away from this with a real sense of not only how colossal our universe is, but how beautiful it is too,” Jackson said.
“The diagrams showed me that the Hubble basically looks back in time billions of years, and the images shown indicate how those galaxies and nebulae looked eons ago,” Jackson said. “This is crazy stuff.”
“Out in Space, Back in Time: Images from the Hubble Space Telescope” runs until February 2013.