The next time you’re taking a romantic stroll by moonlight, take a look up at the moon and consider this: everyone in the world can look up, just like you, and find the same view. In fact, everyone who has ever lived since the beginning of time has had that view. It’s a dazzling thought.

Now through March 31, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston is hosting an exhibit that looks at our relationship to the moon, from our early musings on a mysterious orb in the night sky to our most modern, scientific explorations.

From the Moon: Mapping and Exploration is the first of a two-part exhibition and is the best kind of “educational” exhibit. It truly makes you think about something you see every day in a new and deeper way.

Visit the exhibit and begin your exploration in a time when the best minds of our time could only sit here on earth and observe the moon with the naked eye, and when we could only capture the moon in an artist’s rendering. Soon you will travel to a time when we could peer through telescopes for a closer look, and before you know it you will find yourself on the moon’s surface with Apollo 11 taking that “one small step for man.”

Perhaps the highlight of the exhibit is the moon rock that is on display. There’s something amazing about thinking back to that moonlight stroll when you gazed up at the “man in the moon” and then looking at this piece of rock in its display case, knowing that it traveled all of that distance.

From the Moon: Mapping and Exploration is running now through March 31 at the New Science Center Building at 202 Calhoun St. and is open Monday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information click here.