Like every year, the Cité des sciences organizes, on August 5, the night of the stars in the presence of great Tunisian figures and the world of astronomy, with a rich and varied program. The ambition of the organizers of this event is to introduce young and old, insiders and laymen alike, to the wonderful world of astronomy. Scientists will be present to popularize the information to the public of all ages and backgrounds, who will be welcomed from 7:00 p.m. until midnight. A well-rehearsed team from the Cité des sciences will answer all kinds of questions.
Why has the number of planets in the solar system changed? Why is Pluto no longer considered a planet? What is a black hole? What makes gravity? What is the curvature of space-time? What is the name of the galaxy closest to the Milky Way (the galaxy we live in)? How can a telescope go back in time and look into the past? Or more simply what makes high tides and low tides? So many questions that often cross our minds without necessarily having the time to do research to understand. Without blushing, you can ask if we are the only living beings in the universe. This is also the reason why the Cité des sciences has been keen to perpetuate this scientific event for several years now.
Saturn, Jupiter And the others
For amateurs and the curious, the meeting is an opportunity to marvel at the meteor showers visible during the last quarter of the night. Telescopes will be made available to the public to see and appreciate Saturn’s beautiful ring and the gigantic ball of gas that Jupiter represents. This year, several speakers from all over the world will introduce the public to very interesting scientific fields. Thus, Mehez Zeribi, director of the Center for Space Studies of the Biosphere in Toulouse (Cebio), will talk regarding climate change, Nader Masmoudi, professor of mathematics at New York University, will take us on a tour of Jupiter, and Salma Barkaoui, the astrophysical engineer who shines brightly at NASA and participates in the Insight mission, will also be honored during this night of stars. She will speak regarding the applications of artificial intelligence in space.
A grain of sand
Our beautiful blue planet, although incredibly perfect, is only a grain of sand in a universe that we think is infinite. Our entire solar system with its planets and satellites is just a small suburb of the Milky Way. The Milky Way, our galaxy, is just a tiny pebble in the observable universe, which, according to scientists, includes 2,000 billion galaxies. Our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, is regarding 2.5 million light-years away (or regarding 9.461 billion kilometers). That’s how huge our universe is. And to top it off, some scientists are investigating the possibility that there is not one, but many universes (so-called multiverse theory).
An immensity difficult to imagine by the human brain, which will make the astrophysicist Isaac Newton say, summarizing his work: “I behaved like a child playing on the edge of the sea and who had fun looking from time to time a pebble smoother than the others and a shell prettier than usual, while the great ocean of truth exposed itself to me entirely unknown”.
