Development & Aid, Education, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ASTRONOMY-COLOMBIA: Dazzled by Stars, Dreams and Doubts

Helda Martínez

VILLA DE LEYVA, Colombia, Feb 15 2008 (IPS) - Esteban Felipe is six years old and wants to be a policeman when he grows up. Or better still, an astronomer, he says as he plays with a plastic rocket that he decorated with coloured paper at one of the children’s workshops at the 11th Festival of self-taught astronomers.

The main square of the colonial town of Villa de Leyva, in the central Colombian province of Boyacá, was the location of the most important annual meeting of Latin American amateur astronomers, from Feb. 8 to 10.

The town of white-washed houses with dark green doors and windows, located 60 kilometres northwest of Tunja, the provincial capital, and 150 kilometres from Bogotá, is at an altitude of over 2,000 metres at one of the driest spots in the country, with excellent night-sky visibility, and an average temperature of 17 degrees Celsius.

Three portable planetariums and dozens of 14-inch telescopes were set up in the cobbled central square, the largest in the country. There were also reflecting mirrors for solar observation, with filters transmitting the H-alpha wavelength, “because the sun is made of hydrogen,” Eduardo Hernández, head of the Colombian Association of Self-Taught Astronomers (ASASAC), explained to the children.

“One of the goals is to motivate children, because astronomy is a combination of sciences. An interest in the stars leads to learning about a host of other subjects,” Hernández told IPS.

“It’s also moving to see the reactions of elderly people who look through a telescope for the first time and catch their first glimpse of deep space,” added Mauricio Castro, an educational programmer in Maloka, an interactive science and technology centre in Bogotá which is thought to be the largest in South America.


Lectures and talks were given simultaneously in three auditoriums, with contributions from distinguished astronomers like Germán Puerta, head of the Bogotá Planetarium, and Raúl Joya, who helped put the first Colombian satellite into orbit in 2007.

Experts and amateurs alike were eager to find out more about the so-called “dark energy” of the universe, which in spite of its name, is not the incarnation of interstellar evil in a science fiction movie.

“It’s one of the most important recent discoveries in astronomy, made about five years ago. Until then, the hot discussion topic was whether expansion or contraction will ultimately predominate in the universe,” Castro said.

“But then it was discovered that expansion is accelerating, due to ‘dark energy.’ We don’t know exactly what it is, but it constantly increases the distance between stars and galaxies, to the extent that in about 100 million years’ time, planet Earth will be isolated and alone,” he said.

There were also questions from members of the audience who said they frequently see unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in Boyacá. There are testimonies to the effect that sightings have increased over the last month in Colombia’s western regions, in the provinces of Antioquía, Cauca and Valle.

With respect to such questions, Castro said “It’s absurd to think that life can exist only on our planet.”

“But science demands evidence. The existence of meteorites was only accepted in the 19th century when physical proof was found. In the case of UFOs, that is still lacking, and they might be physical or technological phenomena, or dirigible aircraft, rather than extraterrestrial machines,” he said.

“The same goes for lake monsters and mermaids. We have yet to see a mermaid scale and test its DNA,” he added.

For his part Hernández, a chemical engineer, stressed the importance of exploring the remotest origins of human beings, whom he defines as “stardust.”

“According to theoretical physics, the universe began with a Big Bang which formed the simplest chemical element, hydrogen. Hydrogen gave birth to helium and these gases formed the stars, where heavier elements are made by nuclear fusion, including carbon, oxygen and nitrogen,” Hernández said.

In their final phase, as supernovas, stars explode and scatter their elements. Some of these materials reached Earth and became the building blocks of life. “That is our cosmic origin,” he said.

Astronomy, regarded as the most ancient of all sciences, “broadens cultural horizons, changes the perspective of human beings, and approaches science from different points of view, all of which are important to overcome underdevelopment in our countries,” Castro said.

However, the science of astronomy does not include astrological predictions of the future and its devotees dismiss the idea of an influence exerted by the stars on people’s temperaments.

“Someone born in the slums on the southside of Bogotá and someone else born at the same time on the same day in the north of the same city (a wealthy area) have totally different destinies,” said Hernández.

“That’s why astrological charts are useless. They are a trick,” he said.

This is one reason why first-grader Esteban Felipe, with his cheerful and alert expression, who was born in a poor neighbourhood in Villa de Leyva, may not become an astronomer and is more likely to become a policeman instead.

But the contagious enthusiasm of amateur astronomers, who will be celebrating the International Year of Astronomy in this same town in 2009, to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei’s first astronomical observation through a telescope, may influence this boy and take him down unknown paths, guided by an auspicious star.

 
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