Aliens take over The Science Museum in London.

The Peril From Another Planet zone explores the variety of what we think are aliens, from UFO scares to popular fiction, both in book form and on cinema and TV screens.

The second zone looks at how scientists are exploring the possibilities of alien life, showing how even on Earth extreme conditions can produce weird and wonderful creatures we might describe as “alien” (like the sea spider on the image above.)

Alien Worlds is a fantasy land where scientists predict what alien life might look like, and explain why.

Finally, in Alien Communication, the focus is on SETI – the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence – and begs the question what would we would most like to say to anything we might find out there…

For this exhibition, ART+COM has designed an installation that bring two worlds imagined by a group of scientists to life. Large curved surfaces provide a view to the planets of “Aurelia” and “Blue Moon” where alien species live in dynamic artificial simulation. Aurelia has no seasons, only two different sides: a dark side that is forever cold, trapped in constant winter; but the lighter side is so hot that it suffers from harsh storms and hurricane-force winds.

Blue Moon is more like Earth, a pale blue dot orbiting a giant gas planet. Oxygen makes up 30% of the planet’s atmosphere, compared to 21% on Earth. But there’s 30 times more carbon dioxide than on Earth. The result is a planet with an extreme greenhouse effect and a cloying atmosphere.

The visitors can interact with the creatures on the touch-sensitive surface to learn more about them or influence their behaviours, for example by encouraging the creatures to hunt for food or survive natural disasters prevalent on the planets.

These environments are stretching over 2 by 7.5 Meters each. Large-scale projection systems and a sensitive skin facilitate collaborative exploration of these environments.

The Science of Aliens exhibition runs 15 Oct 2005 – 26 Feb 2006, London.
Read also The Guardian. Pictures in 20 minutos and yahoo (1, 2, 3).