Discovery have a limited number of VR headsets to give away for this exclusive event (they can be shared within a social bubble). Book your ticket and collect your head set from Discovery between 3-4:30pm Tuesday (18th) or Thursday (20th) to join in on the day!

The Universe is waiting to be discovered! SciVR is an immersive astronomy experience enabled by a virtual reality (VR) smartphone app. Our science communicators and researchers return to discuss how incredible detections are being made by Australian researchers in real-time. From special global events using dozens of telescopes to daily monitoring of the radio sky in Australia, SciVR will take you on the hunt for things that go boom! We’ll explore the origins of mysterious and energetic phenomena, tracking events as they occur. Dr Rebecca Allen and A/Prof Alan Duffy share the latest wonders of space research using Australian facilities, like the CSIRO Parkes telescope, to reveal more about the nature of these extreme and transiting objects.

Discover, explore, and learn about extreme and advanced space science and the research that fuels it. Through the immersive medium of VR and guidance of Alan and Rebecca, you can participate in the streamed event and have access to the presenters for in-depth Q&A.

SciVR is designed to engage all audiences. The immersive VR nature is appealing to younger audiences while easy to operate for those with little technical experience. We will have Auslan interpreting as well closed captioning. The Scivr team will work with the Moondani Toombadool Centre at Swinburne to create an appropriate acknowledgment of Indigenous astronomy to help audiences appreciate the discoveries our ancestors made over thousands of years.

—Please download the app to your smartphone well before the event. There are links online at www.scivr.com.au

Have your smartphone fully charged as the adults event runs for an hour, and the family event runs for 30 minutes and you will be using the app the whole time.

You will be given a mini VR headset that clips onto your phone. You may need to take your phone out of its protective case to fit the VR headset on. Some participants have noted that the plastic mini VR headsets have left a scratch mark on the edge of their smartphone, but this may be alleviated by using a sticker or tape stuck on the edge.

You can also choose to run the app on your smartphone without the mini VR headset. When you open the app, you can choose to disable VR mode (single screen, no VR headset required).

Participants keep the VR headset after the event so you can keep exploring.

Alan and Rebecca will be accepting questions via Twitter using the hashtag #AskSciVR and answer them during the live event.

Please check out the FAQs and publicly available resources online at www.scivr.com.au