Starmus, the “ray of hope” that brings collectively Nobel Prizes and musicians in La Palma | Science | EUROtoday

In September 2021, the La Palma volcano erupted and didn’t exit to 85 days later. The lava devastated 1,219 hectares of land and left hundreds of homeless individuals and with out work. Ten years earlier than, Neil Amstrong, the person who first put a foot on the moon, reached the island to speak about the way forward for the earth. He did it within the first version of the Starmus Festival, the scientific encounter that Stephen Hawking outlined as “a ray of hope” and that now, in full wave of cuts to analysis within the United States, he returns to the island in his eighth version.

The occasion, the concept of ​​the Armenian origin scientist Garik Israelian, researcher on the Center for Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, begins this Friday and can final till subsequent Monday. Some of the scientists, engineers, Nobel Prizes and most influential astronauts in latest a long time take part within the competition, which is able to provide talks through the 4 days. Among the friends additionally embrace world famend figures corresponding to Jane Goodall, reputed primatologist and British ethologist, or Queen’s former guitarist – and astrophysicist by occupation – Brian May, one of many standard stars of the competition and that prompted Israelian to hold it out.

This 12 months, the competition theme is “The island of the stars”And, although experts in variety of fields participate, such as Volcanology, Marine Biology, Cybersecurity or Artificial Intelligence, the focus of the meeting is the space, and its study and protection. Just 10 days ago, the administration of Donald Trump threatened to reduce the budget of the United States space agency in half The technological tycoon Elon Musk, although the dismissals demanded by the Government have not yet been quantified.

Among the speakers of this year is Astronaut Kathryn Thornton, the second woman who has spent the most in space out of the ship and that in a recent interview in the country said that the current moment, in reference to the wave of layoffs and research cuts, is “discouraging.” “All the progress we now have made within the final 70 years is at risk,” he warned.

The event will also intervene other vapor astronauts, such as Pablo Álvarez, the first Spanish astronaut at the European Space Agency in 31 years; Charlie Duke, who stepped on the moon in 1972 during the Apollo 16 mission; Chris Hadfield, excommond of the International Space Station (ISS) and who sang Space Oddity by David Bowie while floating in space; o Anousheh Ansari, millionaire of Iranian origin and first woman tourist of space.

The event also brings together Eight Nobel Awards, among which are Donna Strickland, the third woman who has won the Nobel Prize in Physics since 1901, Steven Chu, Nobel Prize in Physics and Secretary of Energy of the United States during the mandate of Barak Obama between 2009 and 2013, and who on numerous occasions has expressed concern about climate change, or Kip Thorne, discoverer of gravitational waves, for which she The Nobel Prize in Physics won in 2017.

Starmus is the acronym for stars (stars) and music in English, and it’s known as that as a result of its founder not solely wished to rejoice science, debate and analysis, however wished to do it with music. Therefore, the competition welcomes a number of live shows yearly and artists such because the legend of rock Glenn Hughes, bassist and singer of Deep Purple, composer Jorge Drexler or the Spanish band Effect hall take part on this version.