Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Today is World Planetarium Day

Bulgarian planetariums offer a walk of the imagination into space

Photo: library

A voyage through time and space at the speed of light and of our imagination - this is what planetariums in Bulgaria offer. Bulgaria's largest planetarium is located in the town of Smolyan in the Rhodope mountains.

The planetarium was opened for the first time in 1975. It has a star hall with a dome-shaped ceiling, which recreates an exact copy of the real starry sky. Special technology is used to replicate the movement of celestial bodies in the solar system.


Another planetarium – in the port city of Varna – is equipped with the so-called Foucault's Pendulum, which is the only one in the Balkans. Its star hall has capacity of 80 seats.

There are 7 permanent planetariums in Bulgaria. In addition to Smolyan and Varna, there are also planetariums in Dimitrovgrad, Yambol, Stara Zagora and Gabrovo. The first new digital planetarium was installed in the Kamchia complex near Varna.

A digital planetarium has also been operating since 2015 in Plovdiv, we learn from the story by Desislava Semkovska, included in Radio Bulgaria’s collection.

Compiled by: Veneta Nikolova

Photos: library, planetarium-sm.org


Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Snow-covered slopes in Borovets, Bansko and Pamporovo before start of the new season

The ski runs in the three major winter resorts of Bulgaria - Borovets, Bansko and Pamporovo, are well covered with snow before the official start of the season, BGNES reports. The 2024/2025 season will open in Borovets on December 15. A good base of..

published on 12/3/24 12:08 PM

Momchilovtsi or Musiliyan - why do the Chinese love the picturesque Rhodope village

In 2009, a state-owned company in Shanghai launched a yogurt on the market under the brand name "Musiliyan, as the village of Momchilovtsi is called in China. The еmergence of this product was accompanied by a large-scale advertising campaign, and..

published on 12/2/24 10:47 AM

The Govedartsi-Malovitsa button lift will be converted into a chair lift

The old button lift in the village of Govedartsi , Samokov Municipality, which takes tourists to the peak of Malyovitsa in the Rila Mountains, is to be modernised as a four-seater chairlift with a capacity of 1,520 people per hour . A proposal has been..

published on 11/24/24 8:05 AM