Infini.to stands at Pino Torinese, on the hill above Turin, next to the astronomical Observatory. It is two things at once: an interactive astronomy museum and a 98-seat digital planetarium, open to the public since 28 September 2007.
What to see
The museum runs over four floors, three of them underground, and the sphere that holds the planetarium, a red supergiant to scale, is visible from every point of the building. On the ground floor are reproductions of satellites, among them the Tethered and LAGEOS 2; on level minus one the displays deal with how we see the universe, the electromagnetic spectrum and the speed of light; on minus three the scale changes, with Hubble's law, the curvature of spacetime and the cosmic background radiation.
Visiting
The most entertaining floor is minus two, the one that opens into the dome: there is an inclined plane to jump on under simulated lunar gravity, pavilions reproducing vortices and gravitational potentials, a carousel explaining angular momentum and called The Skaters' Secret, and an exercise bike that pedals across the solar system at the speed of light. The planetarium ticket is separate from the museum one.
Our editors' tip
Ask which show is on: some are recorded, and the oldest has Margherita Hack as narrator, while others are presented live by a member of the museum staff, and it makes a good deal of difference. One practical warning: the ticket office is further downhill, and the inclined lift that connected it is out of use after a landslide, replaced by a free shuttle.