{"id":341430,"date":"2026-06-18T15:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/341430\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:18:10","slug":"new-vr-smithsonian-starstruck-exhibit-opens-in-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/341430\/","title":{"rendered":"New VR Smithsonian Starstruck exhibit opens in San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The furthest reaches of the cosmos will be within touching distance of San Antonio thanks to a new immersive attraction. <a href=\"https:\/\/smithsonianstarstruck.com\/san-antonio\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Smithsonian Starstruck<\/a>, opening July 2 at downtown\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/shoprivercenter.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">The Shops at Rivercenter<\/a>, offers a light-speed virtual reality trip across the universe.<\/p>\n<p>Entertainment company Fever partnered with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) to bring the adventure to life. Starstruck incorporates decades of astronomical data and images gathered by the SAO to build a simulated jaunt that puts visitors right next to black holes, extreme exoplanets, and the Big Bang itself.<\/p>\n<p>Visitors can also hear the sound of the sun as recorded by NASA&#8217;s Parker Solar Probe, see Betelgeuse go supernova, and stand on the Hubble Space Telescope as it flies through orbit. The experience is free roam, allowing guests to go where no man has gone before.<\/p>\n<p>The exhibit\u2019s art is all handmade by a team of animators, game developers, 3D modelers, composers, and writers who mapped out the cosmic scenes based on data from SAO, NASA, and the European Space Agency. Some AI was used for storyboarding and cleanup, but the creative elements were developed by humans drawing on real scientific data, <a href=\"https:\/\/washingtonian.com\/2026\/05\/14\/this-exhibit-turns-smithsonian-telescope-data-into-a-virtual-space-walk\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Fever New Ventures team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis project demonstrates how immersive experiences can make complex scientific ideas more tangible and engaging,\u201d said Randall Smith, Associate Director for Science at the Center for Astrophysics at SAO, in a release. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see astronomical data translated into an experience that encourages curiosity and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>San Antonio is only the second city to host Smithsonian Starstruck. Previously, it launched in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>Tickets, starting at $15, will be available through the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.feverup.com\/m\/665850\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">website <\/a>and the Fever app starting Thursday, June 18. The immersive experience takes roughly an hour to complete, with 40 minutes spent in virtual reality. The attraction is rated for audiences 10 and up and is accessible to people with disabilities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The furthest reaches of the cosmos will be within touching distance of San Antonio thanks to a new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[993,2777,8832,3934,82,84,83,39293,16052,3951,39292],"class_list":["post-341430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-downtown","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibits","tag-river-walk","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-shops-at-rivercenter","tag-smithsonian","tag-space","tag-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}