Most people can’t visit the stars whenever they feel like it, but a miniature tour of Earth and space in the Fulton Center is bringing the outer limits closer to ASU.

The display, which started March 9 and runs until May 8, is located in the Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on the first floor of the Fulton Center.

The case features a different school every two months, and the current display showcases pictures, rocks and models from the School of Earth and Space Exploration.

Nicole Staab, media and public-relations coordinator for the school, put together the contents of the display.

“I wanted to try to make sure that all parts of the school are equally represented,” she said.

Staab said people might not have time to go to one of the school’s museums, or they might not know they’d even be interested.

“I think it’s nice to have these quick little minibites for people to get interested,” she said. “If you can get a person interested in one little tidbit, then it’s a lot easier to get them interested in more.”

One of the shelves is dedicated solely to rocks and specimens from the geology museum, Staab said.

Another shelf represents astronomy and astrophysics, which includes a miniature space shuttle with tiny astronauts, she said.

“There are also really cool photos that one of the professors has of stars exploding,” Staab said. “There are lots of really cool and colorful pictures.”

Staab said one of her favorite shelves is dedicated to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, which was designed to address the measurement requirements of landing site certification, as well as polar illumination.

“There’s a real piece of moon meteorite, and you don’t see that every day,” she said. “There’s also a miniature model of the moon and a model for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on top of the case.”

Kip Hodges, the director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, said the display was a way to help people understand what goes on in his particular school.

He said the school has an unusual structure because it covers topics that other universities include in the geology and physics departments.

He also said that the school has engineering faculty, which is a unique addition within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“It’s easy for us to be misunderstood or sometimes underappreciated at the University,” Hodges said. “This helps people get a sense of the breadth of what we do.”

Alan Artibise, executive dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said a lot of students, parents and visitors from other universities pass through the Dean’s Office.

“We thought, ‘While they’re sitting there waiting for their meeting time, wouldn’t it be nice if there was something to actually look at to get a sense of what we actually do in the college?’” Artibise said.

Reach the reporter at charlsy.panzino@asu.edu.