Planetarium Lates: Sounding Stars & the Search for Other Worlds
13 February 2020
Professor Bill Chaplin and curator Liz Hingley presented to a public audience in Thinktank’s immersive planetarium. Bill gave a visually rich presentation of NASA Kepler Mission’s ground-breaking observations of the natural resonances of stars, and the discovery of thousands of planets orbiting stars in the nearby regions of our Galaxy. The NASA TESS Mission, launched in 2018, is furthering these endeavours across most of the sky.
Bill showed some of the latest data from TESS and Kepler, which is being used and responded to by artists through sustained exchanges with University of Birmingham Scientists.
Liz introduced PHYART@UOB and showed the ways artists and scientists have been inspiring each other in glass blowing studios, dance workshops, music festivals, clock towers as well as in technical labs and offices. Sharing materials and methodologies has proved a catalyst for change within the work of the artists as well as the scientists, generating new bodies of work and ideas.
“We are fascinated as artists by the spectacular imagery of space, engaging in creative dialogue with space researchers and gaining new insights into the forces of the Universe”