The center attraction of the Steinhart Aquarium is the Water Planet, a 6,000-square-foot exhibition area.

Designed in collaboration with New York exhibition design firm Thinc Design, the exhibit incorporates new modes of design and technology.

The Water Planet is the core of an aquarium that explores the diversity of life on earth and the varied habitats it creates.

The exhibition focuses on water and the way life adapts to water’s many different conditions and states, extremes of abundance and scarcity; stillness and movement; salinity and freshness; heat and cold.

It gives visitors an opportunity to learn about and contemplate the relationship between water and life, a relationship that most people take for granted.