Alien Plants and Interstellar Visitors
Join us for an evening of art and science during International Dark Sky Week. The program begins with an artist talk by current residents Nicole Banowetz and Devin Reilly, followed by a presentation by residency alum Dr. Daniel Fleisch on asteroids, dwarf planets, comets, and interstellar visitors.
- April 18, 2026
- 7:00PM–8:30PM MST
-
Visitor Center Theater
8 South Entrance Road
Grand Canyon Village, AZ
86023
Asteroids, Dwarf Planets, and Comets: Including Some Interstellar Visitors That Are Not Alien Spaceships
Comets have been in the news recently, so this presentation is about the "small bodies" that live in or are passing through our solar system. Those objects include asteroids (the source of most meteorites), dwarf planets (including the former planet Pluto), and comets such as 3I/ATLAS (purported by some to be an "alien spaceship"). Even without aliens, this natural comet is exceedingly interesting because it has come from a far-distant stellar system and may well have been traveling for billions of years before the Sun and planets of our solar system were born.
This presentation will be followed by a laser tour of the night sky.
Dr. Daniel Fleisch
Astronomer in Residence, 2022Dr. Dan Fleisch is the award-winning Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Wittenberg University, where he specializes in electromagnetics and space physics. He is the author of the internationally best-selling book A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equations and five other physics and astronomy books published by Cambridge University Press. His books have been translated into Japanese, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Greek, Polish, and other languages. Dr. Fleisch was the 2010 Ohio Professor of the Year, and in 2023 the minor planet (17037)Danfleisch was named in his honor by the International Astronomical Union.
Nicole Banowetz
Artist in Residence, 2026Nicole Banowetz is from Colorado where she studied art and found a passion for sewing large inflatable sculptures. She has showed work in large international exhibitions such as The Amsterdam Light Festival, Bad Art's Hot Air in London, Open Art in Sweden, and PASSAGES INSOLITES in Quebec City, and taken part in environmental exhibitions in California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Finland. Her largest gallery installations were shown in the Denver Art Museum, the Longmont Museum, and Wonderspaces.
Devin Reilly
Artist in Residence, 2026Devin Reilly was born in Kansas but moved to Colorado where he met Nicole and their love of microscopic creatures brought them together. Reilly originally studied illustration but found that he preferred sculpture and began to focus on wearable sculpture pieces. He worked for many years as a commercial sculptor, gaining skills in a variety of materials and processes.