The ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum in Ashland, Oregon, US, is planning to build a new planetarium.

The museum has applied to NASA for a US$650,000 grant and if it is approved the museum will only have to find 10 per cent of the total project costs.

The planetarium would be a full-dome digital theatre and - as the museum currently only uses half of its 20,000sq ft exhibition space - it would be built on site, taking eight months to complete.

The 26,000sq ft museum, built on the site of the Pacific Northwest Museum of Natural History, was founded in 2002 through an arrangement between the Kirlin Foundation and Southern Oregon University.