Hawai‘i’s cultural past connects with the present and the future at ‘Imiloa Hawai‘i located in Hilo on Hawai‘i’s Big Island. With its stunning architecture, titanium cones and award-winning landscape of native and “canoe” plants of Hawai‘i, the Center since opening on February 20, 2006, has become a new landmark for the island, and a major new destination for visitors to Hawai‘i Island.
“This faci
lity is a place of gathering, inspiration and connection,” said Ka’iu Kimura, executive director of the Center. “Our nu‘ukia, our mission, is to honor Maunakea by sharing Hawaiian culture and science to inspire explorations.”
‘Imiloa Astronomy Center is located more than nine acres of land overlooking Hilo Bay on the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Science and Technology Park campus. The Center features unique exhibits in its 12,000-square-foot gallery that intertwines astronomy and Hawaiian culture into a compelling story of human exploration and voyaging. The Center takes its name from the Hawaiian word ‘imiloa, which means to explore or to seek knowledge or profound truth. Exhibit programs explore the connections between the early Polynesian star navigators, our earliest astronomers and observers of the skies, and today’s astronomers, who look at stars for answers to questions about how life began. In the Voyaging Exhibit ‘Imiloa hosts a one-fifth scale model of the Hokūalaka‘i canoe, a modern day canoe, which symbolizes a continuing journey to preserve Hawaiian language and culture. The Center also showcases the exploration of the stars by the astronomers on Maunakea, one of the world’s tallest peaks standing 13,800 feet above sea level, and one of the world’s most pristine locations for astronomical research. Observatories atop Maunakea constitute the largest collection of modern observatories in the world and research from those telescopes is revolutionizing our understanding of the universe.
