MOSI’s Dome is Open and Amazing
Step in and be surrounded by science. The new eight-story-tall MOSI Digital Dome Theatre is now open.
A 10,000-square-foot curved screen fills the inside of MOSI’s iconic blue dome. Soar through space, explore under the sea or dive into a volcano—all right next to the University of South Florida (USF) in North Tampa’s Uptown neighborhood.
The new MOSI Digital Dome Theatre can wow you with:
- Planetarium tours of the night sky
- Immersive 360-degree movies
- Laser light music concerts
- Live performances
- Special events, including weddings
MOSI guests can choose from multiple show options every day, and a Digital Dome Theatre ticket is included with MOSI admission.
Plus, get ready for field trips. Entire grade levels at schools can share a huge STEM experience at the same time as the theatre has more than 300 seats.
Ten state-of-the-art projectors team up to create an enormous image that’s not just High Definition or 4K – but 8K. And that crystal-clear picture can take you anywhere in the galaxy; MOSI’s Digital Dome Theatre is the new home of the Saunders Planetarium and now the second-largest planetarium in America.
To get your tickets or find out about field trips, visit mosi.org.
Spend a Night Stargazing for Free
Want to gaze at the stars with your family and guidance from an expert astronomer? This spring, the St. Petersburg College Planetarium is hosting free shows. You’ll get a 45-minute tour of the night sky indoors, then if the weather permits, you’ll head outside to look through their telescope at objects like planets, stars and galaxies.
When: 8 p.m. every Wednesday night through May 7 (except for April 18)
Where: Natural Science Building (SC 205) on the SPC St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, 6605 5th Ave N., St. Petersburg
More info: spcollege.edu
Tampa Bay’s Moon Mission Control
The moon is closer than you think. That’s because a group of our neighbors here in Tampa Bay just sent an experiment to the moon on a robotic lander. They run a company called Lonestar.
Their experiment launched on a SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 26. While it was on its way to the moon, the Lonestar team turned a room in their offices in St. Petersburg into a mission control center. Signals were going from St. Pete, to a spacecraft 240,000 miles away, and then back to earth.
The experiment is called the Freedom Data Center. It stores information like business documents and historical records on the moon, backing them up and keeping them safe from disasters on earth. “Our core mission is saving Earth’s data, one byte at a time,” says Chris Stott, CEO of Lonestar.
The data center is black and about the size of a school textbook. It’s attached to the side of a lunar lander called Athena. When the Athena lander touched down on the moon on March 6, it tipped onto its side. That meant that the lander couldn’t get enough power from the sun, and it would run out of electricity quickly.
The Lonestar team hurried to complete the tests they needed to prove that their experiment works. And they did it; they proved that they can safely store data from earth on another world. Lonestar is already planning more missions in the future.
READ MORE:
- NEW AT MOSI: Dinosaur Discoveries: Ancient Fossils, New Ideas
- NEW at MOSI: a-MAZE-ing Butterflies exhibit
Originally published in the April 2025 issue of Tampa Bay Parenting Magazine.