Most planetarium shows ask you to sit still and look up. The Smithsonian's new VR exhibit takes a different approach, letting visitors walk through the vast expanse of the universe, drifting past stars, planets, and a black hole to get a physical sense of its true scale.

A $29 ticket to the edge of the galaxy

Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience is a 40-minute virtual reality tour that opened in Washington, D.C. in May. Tickets run from $29 to $35 for solo visitors, with group rates as low as $18 a head, all discounted 15% right now. The exhibit is set to expand to Denver, Orlando, and San Antonio later this year.

Visitors strap into an HTC Vive Focus 3 VR headset and walk through a tour guided by narrator James Seawood. Highlights include a beam-of-light demonstration near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, a simulation of the dying star Betelgeuse going supernova, and a close pass by the Sun alongside NASA's Parker Solar Probe. The route also stops at the exoplanet 55 Cancri Ae and the origin point of the universe itself, before ending at the future site of the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile, rendered as if construction were already finished.

Temper your visual expectations

VR exhibits like this one live and die by their hardware, and Starstruck's DC location is currently running on the Vive Focus 3, a headset HTC released in 2021. Sharpness and clarity take a hit as a result, particularly during fast head movement. HTC's more recent Vive Focus Vision addresses many of these issues and is set to power Starstruck's upcoming locations once they open later this year, though the Smithsonian has not said when the DC exhibit will get the same upgrade.

Older hardware aside, Starstruck's real pitch is perspective, not resolution. Watching a star die or a beam of light bend into a black hole hits different when you are standing in it rather than watching it on a dome overhead. Whether you go solo for $29 or split it four ways with friends for $18 a head, that is a fairly small price to pay to realize just how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.