10 000th student visits the ESO Supernova

On 29 May 2019, students from the Oskar von Miller Technical College, Meran, Italy visited the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre, bringing the total number of student visitors since the centre’s inauguration to over 10 000. To mark this milestone, each student was given a gift as a memento of their visit, and the accompanying teacher received the ESO publication “The Jewel on the Mountaintop” for the school’s library.

The ESO Supernova reached this milestone after just over one year of sharing astronomy and space with the public through its engaging education programme, exhibitions, public talks, and planetarium shows. Over the last 13 months, school groups from 11 different countries, among them eight ESO member states, joined the education programme.

The centre places a particular emphasis on education and encourages visits from school classes, for which special activities and workshops can be arranged. Teacher training sessions at the ESO Supernova are also available several times per year, empowering teachers to deliver inspiring astronomy lessons. As the centre is thankfully supported by international colleagues from ESO Headquarters, many activities can be offered in multiple different languages.

As well as hosting a packed education programme, the centre actively collaborates with other organisations to improve astronomy education and public outreach; this year it will host an IAU Astronomy Education Conference, bringing together astronomers, astronomy education researchers and education practitioners to share knowledge about the effective public communication of astronomy.

More Information

The ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre

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.

Courtesy of European Southern Observatory