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Mededeling

Is there life elsewhere in the Universe?

New Planetarium Show enters the ESO Supernova programme

30 september 2019

The newest addition to the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre’s programme, the show Out There — The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds, invites you to discover humanity’s quest for life on other planets, as we try to understand whether life in the Universe is the norm or the exception. Are you curious to learn how science caught up with fiction, what planets we first explored and how we discover new extrasolar planets nowadays? Then book your place at a show starting on 28 October 2019, in either German or English.

For thousands of years, mankind thought that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Thanks to our curiosity, imagination and urge to explore, we now know that planets around stars are nothing special in the cosmos. The Sun is just one ordinary star among hundreds of billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

With the world’s most powerful telescopes we are able to explore more and more of the Universe. What we have found so far has surpassed even the wildest expectations of both scientists and authors of science fiction. Most stars have planets — it turns out they are more common than we thought.

Out There — The Quest for Extrasolar Worlds tells the story of how human curiosity has driven us to look outwards for millennia, to discover and explore new and distant worlds and to search for the unfamiliar and extraordinary forms of life that could exist in the mysterious realms of the Universe.

Learn more about the fascinating diversity of alien worlds in this production by The Swiss Museum of Transport Planetarium in cooperation with NCCR PlanetS and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which blends breathtaking fulldome footage and state-of-the-art animation in a captivating exploration of extrasolar worlds.

The show lasts approximately 50 minutes and is suitable for a general audience, from 10 years of age. Tickets costs 5 euros and can be booked online.

More information

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is a cutting-edge astronomy centre for the public and an educational facility, located at the site of the ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München. The centre hosts the largest tilted planetarium in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and an interactive exhibition, sharing the fascinating world of astronomy and ESO to inspire coming generations to appreciate and understand the Universe around us. All content is provided in English and German. Entrance to the exhibition is free, and requires no prior booking. For planetarium shows, guided tours and other activities, visitors need to book and pay for their tickets online. For more details visit: supernova.eso.org

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre is a cooperation between the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS). The building is a donation from the Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS), a German foundation, and ESO runs the facility.

ESO Supernova is proudly supported by: LOR Foundation, Evans & Sutherland, Sky-Skan and Energie-Wende-Garching.

KTS

The Klaus Tschira Stiftung (KTS) was created in 1995 by the physicist and SAP co-founder Klaus Tschira (1940-2015). It is one of Europe’s largest privately funded non-profit foundations. The Foundation promotes the advancement of the natural sciences, mathematics, and computer science, and strives to raise appreciation for these fields. The Foundation’s commitment begins in kindergarten and continues in schools, universities, and research facilities. The Foundation champions new methods of scientific knowledge transfer, and supports both development and intelligible presentation of research findings.

HITS

The Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS gGmbH) was established in 2010 by the physicist and SAP co-founder Klaus Tschira (1940-2015) and the Klaus Tschira Foundation as a private, non-profit research institute. HITS conducts basic research in the natural sciences, mathematics and computer science, with a focus on processing, structuring, and analysing large amounts of data. The research fields range from molecular biology to astrophysics. The shareholders of HITS are the HITS Stiftung, which is a subsidiary of the Klaus Tschira Foundation, Heidelberg University and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). HITS also cooperates with other universities and research institutes and with industrial partners. The base funding of HITS is provided by the HITS Stiftung with funds received from the Klaus Tschira Foundation. The primary external funding agencies are the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Research Foundation (DFG), and the European Union.

ESO

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.