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Aerial
If
you look up before you walk through the Science Center's
main entrance, you'll see the Aerial, a spiral-shaped
collection of hundreds of hanging spheres—1,578 to
be exact. The Aerial, swinging between the Dichroic Skylight
and the DNA Bench, inspires thoughts about the origins
of the universe as well as the origins of life.
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| Crimping
a cable for the Aerial |
The spheres
of the Aerial are suspended on 342 cables, hung from circular
brackets mounted just below the skylight. The spheres come
in three sizes—three, five or seven inches in diameter—and
each sphere is covered in a thin coat of metal. Most of
the spheres are coated with real gold, but 203 of them are
coated with palladium, another precious metal. |
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| Coating
a sphere with gold |
Instead
of being bright and shiny, the metal finish of the spheres
has a smudged look. The less polished finish gives the spheres
more of a handcrafted style, but it's also practical. The
Aerial is very hard to dust, and dust would make shiny spheres
look dull. Dust doesn't show up as much on the slightly
mottled spheres, so the Aerial will look new for a long
time. |
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