es2303 — Organisation Release
New planetarium show: Satelix
Discover how satellite technology affects our daily lives
3 March 2023
Without them, we would not have navigation in our cars or mobile phones, accurate weather forecasts, and in fact many everyday items, either. Do you ask who they are? None other than artificial satellites!
From April 2023, the ESO Supernova is happy to offer an interesting new show in our planetarium programme. Satelix shows audiences, in a beautifully animated planetarium show, how satellites are with us all day, every day.
We used to wander around the continents and the oceans to expand to every corner of our planet. Not long ago, like heavenly riders, we conquered Earth’s atmosphere. And now… now we are becoming wanderers in a new vast world called the universe. Satellite technologies help us every day. They are the symbol of international cooperation across the continents. And they might enable us to live on this planet for another millennium. You don’t believe it?
The show Satelix is a result of an international project between six European planetaria: Brno Planetarium and Observatory, Planetarium Hamburg, Planetarium Wenus, Slovak Central Observatory, TIT Planetarium Budapest and The Baia Mare Astronomy Science Museum. The main aim of the show is to present how cosmic technologies affect our everyday lives without us even realising it, whilst the main aim of the project was to bring together people from different planetaria to share their knowhow and combine it to represent what we all expect from a fulldome show. The production was cofinanced by the Erasmus+ programme.
The show lasts approximately 1 hour and is suitable for a general audience, from 8 years of age. Tickets cost 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 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. 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”.
