On Sunday, October 16, the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale at the Université Paris Sud opened its doors for the public celebrating the Fête de la Science. Hundreds of visitors enjoyed a rich programme of presentations, exhibits and lab visits. Several high school classes, including one from French Guyana, visited the institute on two additional days during the week.
FLARECAST project members Frédéric Baudin and Eric Buchlin were very involved organizing and carrying out this event. The sun was very well represented. Frédéric had a talk about ‘the Sun and its cousins, the stars’, and Erics wonderful solar limb movie was shown on two very big screens (see image below and check out the movies on YouTube – they are fantastic). Visitors had the opportunity to experience a solar storm watching a VR-movie developed by Miho Janvier and Tom Saville. A set of big posters from the exhibition ‘L’Odyssée de la Lumière’ at Cité des Sciences in Paris, explaining the journey of a photon from the centre of the Sun to the Earth, complemented the experience.
It all looks as if they soon had a space science centre on their own at Paris Sud!
FLARECAST outreach on SlideShare
