Seven years ago, the planetarium in the Swiss Museum of Transport was extensively renovated. The old analog star projector from ZEISS was retired and the dome was equipped with a digital computer system. This turned the star theater into an interactive space simulator and opened up a multitude of new possibilities for bringing the universe - and our Earth - closer to the public. Research is progressing and new exoplanets, i.e. planets orbiting distant stars, are constantly being discovered. The Planetarium team aims to give its audience access to such cutting-edge science. With our digital projection system, it is now possible to integrate such things into our simulator on a daily basis and show them during a live show.

The European satellite GAIA has been mapping our universe for several years. Part of this huge catalog - around 2 million stars out of 1.8 billion objects - has been integrated into the planetarium system and can be visualized interactively. Another, more terrestrial example is the data now freely accessible from the Federal Office of Topography (swisstopo). It is now possible to fly to every corner of Switzerland with high-resolution terrain models and aerial photographs, or to explore old, digitized national maps in 3D and thus show, for example, the retreat of glaciers over the last 150 years in a unique way.

What is currently happening on the sun? We can present 10-minute old images of the solar satellite SDO to our audience on a 500m2 dome. Or how about current images of weather satellites from space or a live view of the large telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the beautiful starry sky there? All this enables us to surprise our audience time and again and show them in a unique way what a fascinating place our universe is.