es2512 — Organisation Release
Who choreographs the stellar ballet in the centre of the Milky Way
Kosmisches Kino on 10 April
14 March 2025
In this Kosmisches Kino, Stefan Gillessen from the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial physics takes us on a journey from the large telescopes in Chile to the centre of our galaxy. This German-language event will take place on 10 April 2025 at 19:00 in the ESO Supernova. Tickets cost 6.50 Euro each and can be booked online.
Black holes are still a great mystery in astronomy. At the heart of our galaxy lurks a black hole that is four million times heavier than the sun. We found it thanks to its enormous gravitational pull, which forces the stars in its vicinity into tight orbits. In 2020, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this spectacular discovery.
How do you manage to get sharp images of dancing stars from the dust-covered centre of the Milky Way? The large telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Desert, which can see through dust clouds and compensate for the flickering of the Earth's atmosphere, provide the necessary image sharpness. With them, astronomers can determine star positions with an uncertainty that is smaller than a footprint on the Moon's dusty surface.
But despite these groundbreaking observations, many questions remain unanswered: will we one day see how black holes rotate? What happens to passing gas clouds? And does Einstein's theory of gravity remain valid in the face of extreme forces? These and other questions are the topic of the Kosmisches Kino Talk with Stefan Gillessen on April 10, 2025.
The event takes place on 10 April 2025 at 19:00 in the planetarium of the ESO Supernova and will be held in German. Tickets can be booked online. Since this is a live talk there will be no translation available. The ESO Supernova will remain open until the start of the event for visitors, who can explore the exhibition at any time or watch a planetarium show beforehand.
More information
What is Kosmisches Kino?
Kosmisches Kino (Cosmic Cinema) takes visitors into the breathtaking depths of space. Researchers from the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence will accompany you on your journey through the cosmos with selected excerpts from planetarium films and an associated lecture.
Sit back and marvel. Want to know more? Just ask! Kosmisches Kino events take place under the dome of the planetarium. They offer all visitors, no prior knowledge required, an atmospheric insight into the world of research and provide you with new insights. At the end of the event, the researchers answer questions from the audience.
The lecture series Kosmisches Kino is a collaboration between ESO and the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence and presents current research topics. The ORIGINS Excellence Cluster combines astrophysics, particle physics and biophysics to investigate the formation of the Universe and the origin of life. The lectures address exciting questions that current research is investigating: Is there a common thread connecting the Big Bang with the origin of life? How do you measure radiation from space and its effect on humans? Where and how do planets and stars form? What is Dark Matter? What are the building blocks of life on Earth and do they exist elsewhere in space? These and many other questions will be addressed over the course of the event series.
Admission to the approximately one-hour-long evening event with planetarium visualisations, a live lecture and open discussion costs 6.50 Euros per person. Events are aimed at people aged 12 years and over.
Links
- Book your tickets for Who choreographs the stellar ballet in the centre of the Milky Way?
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Contacts
ESO Supernova Planetarium & Besucherzentrum
Garching bei München, DE
Tel: 08932006900
Email: supernova@eso.org
About the Release
| Release No.: | es2512 |
