Carmen Rodríguez
Madrid, May 7 (EFE) .- The planetarians, places full of science and “an emotional experience”, celebrate their centenary. Since the first opened its doors at the Deutsches Munich Museum (Germany) until today there are more than 4,000 worldwide.
The purpose of the former was to show the orbits of the planets in a recreation of a starry sky, now with technological advances they are places to experience the universe.
The International Planetary Society celebrates an act broadcast online to mark the centenary on Wednesday, with the live participation of facilities of all continents.
The first projection planetarium opened its doors on May 7, 1925 at the Deustches Museum, was the beginning of a success story in scientific communication that continues to this day, says the Centenial of the Planetarium website, created for the celebration.
The story had begun in 1923, when the German company Carl Zeiss Jena built the first planetarium based on the projection of optical-mechanical light and made the first demonstration of an artificial starry sky in the German Museum, although not open to the public.
After a few weeks of testing, he returned to the factory to be finished and, after two years he would return, officially to that museum dedicated to science and technology.
One hundred years of changes
From Germany they were extended little by little and today there are more than 4,000 throughout the world to show the public the universe, where we live, but the stars and the night sky are no longer the only issues. “The planetarians are theaters of science, temples of culture and places of entertainment, all in one,” according to Centenial of the Planetarium.
-In Spain, the first planetarians, who were relatively small, settled in the nautical schools for the teaching of those who prepared to be marine, the science educator Nuñez told Efe.
From there and among the oldest, the municipal of Barcelona (1972), although we had to wait for the 80s to arrive open to the public for teaching and education purposes, from the House of Sciences of La Coruña (North) in 1985 or that of Madrid in 1986.
In Latin America, the first planetarium opened in Montevideo, in 1955, already cities like Buenos Aires arrived in 1967 already Bogotá in 1969.
One hundred years later, there are digital planetarians, with 3D or digital interactive, which can transmit images that arrive live from probes in other worlds, the astrophysic and communicator of science Javier Armentia told Efe.
“The change has been brutal, from a machine that looked like a kind of insect to a multimedia room where anything can be done,” he said.
Places that contain a duality. “The feeling that this is the universe that is moving and is telling you a story”, that “curious relationship of the human being with heaven”, already are “a great tool to talk about science” with the most modern technologies.
Alone with the universe
Beyond that undeniable educational and dissemination work, Núñez, who among other positions was director of the House of Science of Coruña, defines them as an “emotional experience.”
The disseminator speaks of the feeling of “finding you alone with the universe”, which “makes you think who you are and what you paint here”, because “that sky we have lost in the cities completely.”
Or the feeling that the philosopher Umberto Eco evoked in an article written in 1993 for the Italian weekly L’Empresso after contemplating, in the planetarium of the House of Sciences, how the sky was the first night of his life: that of January 5 to 6, 1932 in Alessadria, Núñez recalled.
“During those fifteen minutes,” he said, “I had the impression of being the only man on the face of the earth (from the beginning of time) that she was gathering with her own principles. It is a difficult emotion to describe: you have the sensation (almost the desire) that it could be, it should be died at that moment; In any case, other moments will be much more casual and inopportune ».
