Secrets of the Universe, an IMAX film showcasing UC Davis researchers searching for answers about the formation of the universe, will have its on-campus premiere next week at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

The 42-minute documentary, screened in May at the SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity, tells the story of a team of Aggie researchers preparing to collect data from the nuclei of lead atoms being smashed together at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

“In a nutshell we’re trying to recreate a state of matter that existed about a microsecond after the Big Bang,” Manuel Calderón de la Barca Sánchez, a physics professor who served as narrator to the film, told UC Davis Magazine.

The film also shows the contributions UC Davis graduate students made toward the research at CERN — the organization that oversees the Large Hadron Collider — and highlights how discoveries can come from unexpected sources.

Tickets to the Oct. 26 screening are free and available now. The showing will be introduced by Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science, and will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A session with Calderón de la Barca Sánchez and some of the students featured in the film.

Related reading

• ‘Secrets’ in the Multiverse
• ‘Explore Secrets of the Universe in Spectacular IMAX Movie’
• ‘Unsolved Mysteries’