Sunlight

It's more than brilliant

Sunlight takes just over eight minutes to reach us from the sun, and brings plenty of heat, energy and color on the trip. Follow the lead of curious scientists and identify, harness and study the properties of this abundant resource. Sunlight streams through the Museum’s roof so that you can split white light into colors to recreate Isaac Newton’s prism experiments, focus the sun’s energy through a Fresnel lens to heat a liquid, and convert it into power to race model cars.

Featured Exhibits

Heat a pool of water with sunlight, and track the process with a thermal camera.

Race these model cars with power from photovoltaic panels.

Create brilliant 30-foot rainbows in this recreation of Newton's light experiments.

Step into the "color room," where you can adjust the lighting to change how you see a color.