Visitors watching a sky simulation show at the Jakarta Planetarium and Observatory on Dec 25, 2025. The facility reopens after years of closure for renovations, now featuring upgraded facilities and technology to enhance astronomy education for the public. - Antara
JAKARTA: After years of closure, the Jakarta Planetarium and Observatory has reopened to massive crowds, with thousands of visitors eager to experience immersive views of celestial objects projected across the dome-shaped building.
On a cloudy Sunday, 31-year-old Digarahayu and her family visited the facility inside the Ismail Marzuki Park’s (TIM) cultural complex in Central Jakarta. She said they were fortunate to secure three online tickets for the highly sought-after sky show.
“I had to be incredibly quick,” the resident from nearby South Tangerang city in Banten said.
“The tickets sold out within two minutes of going on sale. It turns out that there were more than 17,000 people on the waiting list,” she added.
The frantic “ticket war” paid off, as her five-year-old son enjoyed delighted in watching stars and planets fill the dome. “The experience triggers so many questions from him”.
Widely regarded as the country’s oldest planetarium, the facility offers a 45-minute immersive visual journey across the known universe. At least 12 new projectors have been installed inside the Bintang Theater, which seats 200 visitors in reclining chairs.
The reopening has also drawn 25-year-old university student Andryan from West Jakarta, who called the experience “noteworthy” despite what he considered mediocre acoustics and visuals, a concern echoed by other visitors.
“I hope the organisers can improve the quality and reorganise the scheduling system [to accommodate more people],” he said.
Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung officiated the reopening on Dec 23, expressing hope that the facility would help boost interest in science and astronomy among young people. Since then, at least 2,000 tickets have been sold, leaving thousands of hopeful visitors empty-handed.
The planetarium currently provides only 800 seats across four shows each day.
Some upgrades have been introduced, including updated digital astronomical visualisation systems and improvements to the planetarium’s educational functions for students, researchers and the public.
New facilities supported by artificial intelligence have also been installed, according to Anya Aprillia Christiana, strategic business unit head at TIM.
Responding to the surge in demand, Anya said organisers were working to reorganise schedules to accommodate more visitors. “
But we would face [capacity and infrastructure] constraints if we had to present more than four shows each day,” she told The Jakarta Post on Sunday
The Jakarta Planetarium was built in the mid-1960s under an initiative by then president Sukarno to promote science education at a time when pseudoscientific beliefs were still widespread. Construction was halted during the political turmoil of 1965, and the facility officially opened to the public in 1969.
The Bintang Theater was forced to close in recent years due to technical problems and damage to its aging starball projector, a key device used to project detailed images of celestial objects onto the dome.
Reopening efforts were further hampered by bureaucratic hurdles, including overlapping management between the Jakarta Cultural Agency and city-owned developer Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro) during the major revitalization of TIM that began in 2019.
In 2022, then governor Anies Baswedan issued a gubernatorial decree appointing Jakpro to oversee the revitalization and to manage the arts, culture and science complex.
Delays in reopening the planetarium eventually dampened Jakarta’s once-vibrant astronomy discussions and stargazing events, forcing space enthusiast communities to relocate elsewhere in the city.
The reopening marks a significant step toward reestablishing the planetarium as a science center capable of transforming astronomical knowledge into a lasting experience, according to M. Dio Danarianto, an astrophysicist at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
Still, he said, the planetarium should offer more than cinematic visuals.
“It should also serve as a hub that connects science with various segments of society, including students, young people, communities and the elderly,” he said on Monday. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
