The appointment on August 22nd in Piazza Navona is dedicated to “Water, on Earth and in other worlds. From the Fountain of the Rivers to the extrasolar planets”. Water is the indispensable condition for the origin of life on a planet. The rivers evoked by Bernini's fountain also flowed on Mars in the past, and could wet who knows what other planets outside the solar system. From the intuitions of Giordano Bruno to the search for life in space, the public will be able to follow the traces of water between the planets. The main visible stars will be: Saturn, Mars, suns of extrasolar planets and the Summer Triangle.
After the success of the first stages, the appointments around the city continue to experience the thrill of looking up to the sky and broadening the horizon to tell Roman citizens and tourists that science is at home in Rome. In short, looking at the world from different perspectives, just as the Romans have been able to do since yesterday thanks to the thoughts and voices that make the lights on the Quarticciolo Library Theater turn back on.
The meetings with "E lucevan le stelle" will continue until 30 September in evocative locations in the city, from the historic center to Tuscolana, from the Aurelia to the Nomentana up to the Basilica of S. Paolo, and will lead young and old to admire from time to time magnificent jewels of the firmament such as the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, shooting stars, and many other stars. A unique opportunity to also locate the International Space Station.
The evenings will also be enlivened by guided tours of the sky, in which astronomers will illustrate the stars and constellations with a special laser pointer and a portable amplifier. The narration will range from the mythologies of the constellations to the nature of the most anticipated celestial phenomena (e.g. shooting stars), to the most recent news concerning celestial bodies. Each evening will address a historical-astronomical theme, to which reference will be made both in the narration of the guided tours and in the choice of the stars to observe with the telescope.
The observations of "E lucevan le stelle" are inspired in part by the urban planning project of Pope Sixtus V who, according to some (rather controversial) historical sources, intended to connect the main Roman basilicas by reproducing the design of the Ursa Major constellation on the city plan , with St. Peter's Basilica positioned as the North Star.
It will therefore be up to the public to "baptise" this new constellation on social networks, linking it to the hashtag #Elucevanlestelle.
Participants in possession of their own telescope will be able to report it to info@planetarioroma.it: thus everyone will be able to observe the sky with their own instrument, receiving all the necessary information. Anyone who doesn't have a telescope, or even binoculars, will be able to peek into those of others, to browse among the stars in summer simply by raising their eyes to the sky.
CALENDAR FOR NEXT EVENTS
Monday August 22 – PIAZZA NAVONA (historic center)
Main visible stars: Saturn, Mars, exoplanet suns, Summer Triangle
Theme: Giordano Bruno and extrasolar planets. The flooding of the square to commemorate the periodic flooding of the Nile on the day of the heliacal rising of Sirius
Saturday September 10th – TOURNAMENT FIELD, VILLA TORLONIA (Nomentana)
Main visible stars: Moon, Saturn, Albireo, Epsilon Lyrae, Alpha Herculis
Theme: Conclusion of Astrosummer 2016. The stars, from the planetarium to the sky: the brightest, the double ones, star clusters, constellations and their myths.
Wednesday 14 September – VILLA CARPEGNA (square of Villa Carpegna, Aurelia)
Main visible stars: Moon, Saturn, Vega, Arcturus
Theme: The Moon, 47 years after Apollo 11
Friday September 23th – VILLA LAIS (Piazza Cagliero 20, Tuscolana)
Main visible stars: Saturn, Uranus, Albireo
Theme: on the birthday of Augustus, the transition from the summer to the autumn sky on the day of the equinox
Friday September 30th – SCHUSTER PARK (Basilica San Paolo – piazzale San Paolo)
Main visible stars: Saturn, Uranus, Neptune
Theme: Modern astrophysics in the European Researchers' Night. The conclusion of the Rosetta mission to comet 67P
