January 8th, 2016: Update: as per the comment below from Yan, SLurls for the observatory’s facilities have changed, and the article hand images have been updated to reflect this.
In May 2015, I wrote about the The Abyss Observatory, a collaborative project formulated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and involving the support of a number of organisations including the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Open University in the UK.
At the time I wrote that piece, it appeared that a good part of the Observatory’s operations in Second Life would be going off-line in June. fortunately, rather than this being the case, the team behind the Observatory have been busy relocating the exhibits and also taking the opportunity to renew many of them, and they’re now once more moving forward in their work of fostering a greater understanding of the world around us.
“Since the closing of Second Earth 3 in June 2015, we have been working on five new areas,” Abyss co-founder Yan Lauria informed me during a recent visit to the Observatory’s new hub at Farwell. “We now have installations at Farwell, Jabara Land Atlantis, STEM Island and Lily, although some parts are still under construction.”
The re-working of the Abyss facilities has also led to increased collaboration with other science and eduction groups and organisations in Second Life, and also to expand a presence in OpenSim as well.Supporting the venture from the physical world are the National Institute of Education, Singapore and The Science Circle.
Yan, who is also a lecturer at The Science Circle in Second Life, as well as working at JAMSTEC, went on,”We continue to develop Earth, Ocean and Life science exhibits and cross-disciplinary collaboration in SL and JOGrid with TUIS, JAMSTEC, NIE, UIW, The Science Circle and other organisations,”
Most of the exhibits from the earlier iterations of the Abyss Observatory have now been placed in new locations across the five regions, and a new cross-navigation teleport system has been implemented to ease movement between the different locations and exhibits. These are largely centred on the Observatory’s land at Farwell, which is perhaps the best place to start any planned tour or visit.
It is at Farwell that those new to The Abyss Observatory can gain a general introduction to it and the purposes behind it, visit several of the main exhibition locations, including the Sunken City Excavation by Kichimaru Haystack, the Cetological Museum by Dugong Janu, Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso and the NOAA Okeanos Explorer (and you can read about the latter’s studies in the physical world as well). And that’s just the start of things.
The travel system on Farwell’s shore will take you down to one of two further undersea exhibit areas, the Dophin Promenade, where you can see the unique Tektite Habitat, which in 1969 / 70 was the centre of research into reef ecosystems and human physiology studies related to both saturation diving and possible long-duration space missions. Simply wait for the travel sphere to arrive when you stand at the entrance to the system, then step inside and let it carry you down to the promenade, where you can walk through the glass tunnel to the travel system at the far end.
Just offshore from the island on the east side of Farwell is a further underwater exhibit, reached via elevator. Here you can wander glass observation tunnels on two levels, the lower of which take you into the world of deep diving exploration, and the likes of craft such as the bathyscaphe Triseste, which in 1960, descended the Challenger Deep within the Mariana Trench, to reach a record maximum depth of some 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
For those who prefer, the navigation system – which comprises a series of clickable image boards which supply SLurls to their destinations in chat – will take you up into the sky to the aforementioned Cetological Museum, the Underwater World and Submarine Design Project, and the visually stunning and informative Only One Earth interactive exhibit – which in itself is worth a visit, quite apart from the rest of the Observatory’s offerings. The navigation boards also provide access to the Abyss exhibits at Shamash, Jabara Land Atlantis, STEM Island and Lily, all of which are worth the time to visit and explore.
Continue reading “Return to the Abyss: science in Second Life”
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