ann1805 — Announcement

Our Place in Space comes to Munich

Breathtaking Hubble exhibition to go on display at the ESO Supernova

3 May 2018

For almost 28 years, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has not only revealed the beauty, wonder, and complexity of the Universe, but it has also brought astronomy to the public, greatly impacting our culture, society, and art.

In February 2017, the travelling exhibition Our Place in Space premiered in the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, on the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It was a stellar success, attracting 30 000 visitors over the course of two months. It was then shown in the medieval town of Chiavenna, Italy.

The next stop of Our Place in Space will be in the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre located in Garching, near Munich, where it will be on display starting from 18 May 2018. Our Place in Space will be the first temporary exhibition on display at the ESO Supernova, in addition to the permanent astronomical exhibition.

The location was chosen to not only give German citizens the chance to visit the exhibition, but also to honour the longstanding and fruitful cooperation between the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory.

Our Place in Space is sponsored and organised by the European Space Agency in collaboration with NASA. The exhibition features iconic Hubble images and videos — such as Jupiter’s auroras, the star formation region Westerlund 2, the largest image ever taken of the Andromeda Galaxy, and the new Frontier Fields — alongside imaginative artworks and installations from contemporary Italian artists who have been inspired by Hubble’s view of the cosmos. The artworks range from alabaster-sculpted nebulae to planetary spheres encrusted with glass mosaics to a spacecraft built from recycled wood, plastic, and toys. This fusion of art and astronomy encourages visitors to think about humanity’s place in the grand scheme of the Universe.

Our Place in Space will be open to the public at the ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre. Check the ESO Supernova website for exact opening hours. Entrance to the whole visitor centre is free of charge.

More Information

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Our Place in Space is coordinated by ESA/Hubble, in partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The exhibition in Garching is curated by Antonella Nota, Anna Caterina Bellati and Tania Johnston.

Participating artists are Antonio Abbatepaolo, Marco Bolognesi, Paola Giordano, Ettore Greco, Mario Paschetta, Alessandro Spadari, Marialuisa Tadei, Sara Teresano, Mario Vespasiani, Dania Zanotto, Alberto Salvetti.

The exhibition executive committee consists of Ken Carpenter (NASA HST), Lars Lindberg Christensen (ESO), Carol Christian (STScI), Roger Davies (University of Oxford, UK), Mathias Jäger (ESA/Hubble) and Hussein Jirdeh (STScI).