You Can ‘Touch the Stars' at the California Science Center

Grabbing a ride with a friend to a coffeehouse or the grocery store?

It's pretty easy to sync up with a pal, and hitch a quick lift, if they've got room for you.

But we'll never have to opportunity to saddle up a rover, or ride the coattails of a NASA probe. Even if we asked, and pleaded, we'd surely learn that there is no room for us to zip over to Jupiter, or beyond, and plus? The trip would be rather longer than us running over to the corner shop for a latte.

A fresh IMAX treat, though, can ferry us to the deeper pockets of the Solar System, thanks to a host of NASA rovers, landers, and probes, and we don't even need to strap on a helmet or tank to go.

It's happening at the IMAX theater at the California Science Center, and the name? It's called "Touch the Stars 3D."

It's a visual, big-of-screen eyefest, but a brainfest, too, one that takes the audience into the world of the marvelous machines and robots currently sniffing out, sussing out, and getting to know the outer reaches of our cosmic neighborhood.

The Voyager spacecraft is in the spotlight in this sizable cinematic treat, and discovering how it has discovered much about our Solar System's outer planets is part of the super-smart fun.

Look for "real footage" to weave through the film, as well as "3-dimensional vistas" that up the you-are-there vibe.

Will you ever play a passenger alongside one of these "heroic robot explorers"?

They've got their jobs in their stars, and we're busy here on this planet, so, honestly, schedules may never match up.

But we can schedule a visit to Exposition Park, and time in the IMAX theater. And that 7-story screen? It isn't quite as big as space, but as far as earthbound objects go, it is impressively large, and able to convey a colossal amount of cosmically cool information.