The Shanghai Planetarium, which will be the largest in the world, will officially open to the public on July 18, Penpai reported.

The complex is being constructed since November 2016. 

Before the official opening, the administration of the planetarium intends to hold several open days for journalists and experts to test the operation of the facility in a test mode before the visitors are launched into it, TASS reported.

The planetarium will consist of a main building and a number of ancillary structures, including a youth research center and two public observatories. In the exhibition part, visitors will be able to see about 70 fragments of various meteorites, including artifacts from the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid West. The collection will also include original works by Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, and a number of other scientists. Technologies such as data visualization, augmented reality, biometrics, and artificial intelligence will find wide application in the educational programs of the planetarium.

The main building, according to the plan, consists of three structures that resemble celestial bodies: the Oculus, an inverted dome, and a sphere, which together form a giant astronomical instrument for tracking time based on changes in light and shadow. Outwardly, the complex resembles a large spaceship from science fiction films or stylized orbits along which the planets move. The walking paths around the main building are laid out in such a way that they look like lines of a galactic spiral. During the construction of the planetarium, environmentally friendly materials and the latest achievements of green technologies were used to ensure the functioning of the complex.