es2001 — Organisation Release

New at the ESO Supernova: “Beyond the Sun” Planetarium Show

The story of a little girl who explores the Universe to find exoplanets, now available in German

24 April 2020

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre programme will feature a new show called “Beyond the Sun”, focused on the delights and mysteries of exoplanet hunting.

Although the ESO Supernova remains currently closed, our team is still busy in the background, planning for the future. When we can reopen, we are delighted to have a new film in our planetarium programme, "Beyond the Sun", from Spanish companies Render Area and Monigotes Estudio 2.0.

The film centres around Celeste, a little girl who is visited by a friendly particle of light called Moon just before going to sleep. In a dreamlike state, Celeste and Moon travel beyond the Sun and learn many amazing things together.

“Out there,” says Moon, “there may be a star like our Sun and orbiting around it there may be a planet like our Earth with oceans, jungles, and — who knows? — maybe civilisation.”

The show uses top-quality photorealistic animation with scientific supervision for a beautiful experience that is also accurate. The planetarium show is suited to children as young as 5, but promises to engage and entertain audiences of all ages. Kids and adults alike will experience and enjoy all the amazing technological work packed into a funny and wonderful story.

In a friendly and relatable manner, the audience is invited to learn about all the different types of worlds including rogue planets, oceanic worlds and super-Earths. Beyond that, viewers can learn about real-life exoplanet hunters who observe the sky and search for other planets that are like Earth.

The film lasts a bit less than one hour and is available in both English and German. Tickets can be booked here. The German version of “Beyond the Sun” is the result of a collaboration between the ESO Supernova and Munich-based Reef Distribution. The German narration will be available to other planetarium community members for purchase.

Together with “The Planets 360”, the show “Beyond the Sun” is just one of the many new items that the ESO Supernova has prepared for 2020. The complete programme of activities can be found at this link.

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 a digital planetarium with a tilted, 360-degree dome, 14 metres in diameter, 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 and Sky-Skan.

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, the Czech Republic, 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”.