Three weeks ago, an exciting and unique event took place on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. The STARMUS Festival drew several thousand people who heard an all-star lineup of speakers on astronomy, space exploration, and celebrating the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight. Speakers included former astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Bill Anders, Neil Armstrong, Charlie Duke, Viktor Gorbatko, Alexei Leonov, Jim Lovell, Claude Nicollier, and Sergei Zhukov.
Photo credit: Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos
Astronomy-related talks included a wide range of subjects on big topics, including Robert Williams on key discoveries of the past 50 years; Jill Tarter on intelligent life in the universe; Michel Mayor on extrasolar planets; Kip Thorne on black holes; and George Smoot on the early universe.
As if that weren’t enough, Ph.D. astronomer and Queen guitarist Brian May gave the provocative talk, “What are we doing in space?” and capped off the event by performing a concert with the group Tangerine Dream, including many of their songs and a few Queen tunes. It was an extraordinary event, a unique happening in astronomy, space exploration, cosmology, and music, and I hope to see events like this happen again to bring together so many creative people.
For an overview of the event, see the
STARMUS Festival website.
Tomorrow, I’ll bring you some more details about what happened at STARMUS and allow you to experience a little of the action.