LOS ANGELES—On Monday, January 26, 2026, Griffith Observatory Foundation will host a sneak preview of the Celestial Globe, a monumental new exhibit at Griffith Observatory made possible by Griffith Observatory Foundation and sponsored by The Eisenberg Foundation and The Ahmanson Foundation. This is the first major exhibit installed at the Observatory in over 19 years.

The Celestial Globe will debut for the public when the Observatory opens at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, January 27. The exhibit will then be on permanent display.

Installed in Gravity’s Stairway, the exhibit offers visitors a striking encounter with the ancient origins of astronomy and the enduring human effort to understand the sky.

Inspired by the celestial sphere held by the second-century Roman sculpture known as the Farnese Atlas, the Celestial Globe spotlights the connection between the constellations of antiquity and contemporary astronomical science. Designed by Cindy Ingraham Keefer and weighing roughly 800 pounds, the Celestial Globe depicts 43 Classical constellations made of bronze and created with a combination of ancient and modern technologies: A lost wax-casting process utilizing 3D-printed molds. The sphere rotates and echoes how the ancients imagined the heavens turned in Atlas’s grip.

The new exhibit will be seen by the Observatory’s 1.5 million annual visitors, including the 28,000 fifth-grade students who attend the Observatory’s In-person School Program.

Originally conceived as part of Griffith Observatory’s extensive renovation and expansion completed in 2006, the Celestial Globe arrives as a long-awaited link between the Observatory’s Historic Level and the Gunther Depths of Space. In the Observatory, the exhibit bridges our millennia-long experience of the sky as seen from Earth with the universe as revealed through modern instruments and space exploration.

WHEN
Private Opening Reception
Monday, January 26
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Interviews may be scheduled to immediately follow the reception.
The program will feature a lecture by Dr. E.C. Krupp and is available exclusively to invited guests and media who RSVP in advance.

WHERE
Gravity’s Stairway
Griffith Observatory
2800 East Observatory Road
Los Angeles, CA 90027

GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY FOUNDATION
The Observatory’s exclusive non-profit partner, Griffith Observatory Foundation, has provided additional funding and other resources to support the coordination, production, and installation of the Celestial Globe.

EXHIBIT SPONSORS
The Eisenberg Foundation
The Ahmanson Foundation

EXHIBIT PRODUCTION CREDITS
Designer – Cindy Ingraham Keefer
Fabrication – The Big New (Patrick Rees and Eduardo Ortiz, Principals)
Structural Engineering – Miyamoto (Ken Wong, M.Eng., S.E., Principal)

For more information about the Celestial Globe, visit the exhibit page.