NAI Central and Astrobiology Grad Students Participate in Yuri's Night Exhibit

Yuri’s Night is an international celebration held on April 12 every year to commemorate the launch of the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space and the launch of the first U.S. Space Shuttle. NAI Central staff, along with several Astrobiology graduate students who were in town for AbSciCon, co-hosted an exhibit with Electronic Arts (EA) at Yuri’s Night 2008 at Ames Research Center, which drew a crowd of over 7,000 people.

Highlighting both the soon-to-be-released electronic game “Spore” and the science of astrobiology, the exhibit had a steady stream of visitors throughout the event, which began at 2pm on April 12 and ended at 2am the next morning. Spore is an astrobiology-based game that is described by EA as “an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space.”

[Source: NAI newsletter]