Guided Tours for School Classes
The ESO Supernova hosts an outstanding, modern and interactive astronomical exhibition, which is as entertaining as it is educational. It challenges the visitors to explore, touch, use real astronomical artefacts and conduct experiments to get an idea of what it means to be an astronomer, to work in science, and to discover the mysteries of the Universe.
The tour for our youngest visitors focuses on our astronomical neighbourhood, namely Earth, Moon & the Sun followed by all other members of our Solar System. It will then lead the kids to the stars and to planets orbiting other stars so-called exoplanets. Coming back home on Earth in the Atacama Desert the kids get to know the telescope sites of ESO and the telescopes themselves. The duration of this tour depends on the attention span of the participants but won’t exceed 35 minutes.
The older the group members are, the deeper we delve into the science behind the astronomical objects, the observation facilities and techniques and the further out we travel into the Universe. Further topics that will be addressed depending on the interest/background of the group members are
- observing the whole electromagnetic spectrum - how and why
- the future of ground-based optical astronomy - the Extremely-Large-Telescope
- when stars rendezvous - the Milky Way and other galaxies
- past, present, future - Cosmology
- the open questions
On request the tour can also focus on special topics the group wants to cover. In this case it would be helpful if these topics are mentioned to us in advance during the planning of the visit. The duration of this tour depends on the attention span of the participants but won’t exceed 50 minutes.