The Clark Planetarium is a planetarium and science museum situated within The Gateway at the intersection of 400 West and 100 South in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The Clark Planetarium opened in April 2003, replacing the historic Hansen Planetarium under a grant from the Clark Foundation in cooperation with Salt Lake County.
The dome is a 55-foot (16.8 m) perforated aluminum dome manufactured by Astro-tec Manufacturing Inc. The theater seats 190 and features individual interactive seat button controls. In September, 2018 the theater was closed to replace the seats. Designed around Evans & Sutherland's Digistar planetarium system, two super-high resolution projectors work together to blend a single video stream over the entire dome in 3 dimensions with no special viewing glasses required and a resolution greater than high definition video. The new system installed in 2011 can display 4096 X 4096 resolution and 60 frames per second.
A 13,000 watt sound system with 5.1 surround sound and 21 speakers is installed behind the screen. Shows cover a variety of space-related themes.
This planetarium features an IMAX certified big screen theater. The Northrop Grumman IMAX Theatre at Clark Planetarium emphasizes science and nature documentary programming. Shows feature both 3-D and 2-D films. A major renovation in November, 2010 modernized the theater with digital projectors, a new screen, new seats, and a new sound system.
The Clark Planetarium Production Department creates its own digital dome cinema using a 464-node render farm.
The Clark Planetarium features 10000square feet of free exhibits including "Science on a Sphere," a computer animation globe by NOAA. Also unique is "Newton's Daydream", the most ambitious audio-kinetic sculpture ever created by artist George Rhoads. Other popular exhibits include a Foucault pendulum, Earth Globe, Meteorites, Telescope displays, and updating video from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA TV. The Clark Planetarium is also one of the few institutions to have an authentic Moon rock sample on permanent loan from NASA. This rock was obtained from the Apollo 15 mission and is displayed in a special exhibit showing the Apollo Moon landings and video footage of the astronauts collecting the displayed sample rock. New exhibits are added on a regular basis, including a rocketry display by ATK Launch Systems of Utah, a Solar Energy exhibit, and "Weight on Other Worlds".
The education department at the planetarium serves over 75,000 school children a year through field trips and traveling science education programs throughout the state of Utah. Outreach programs include auditorium programs which showcase some of the best interactive science demonstrations possible. In-depth visits to 6th grades focus on aspects of their astronomy curriculum, and star parties provide opportunities to directly view many celestial objects. Topics include electricity, Newton's laws of motion, phases of the Moon, seasons, distance and scale, planets, the Solar System, and other science interest topics.