Bajo un Mismo Cielo (Under the Same Sky) Part 1 - GalileoMobile documentary
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Astronomy is the science
dedicated to the study of celestial bodies
and all related phenomena.
Throughout history the sky has
drawn the attention of every civilization,
thus connecting the observation of
stars to many aspects of everyday life.
Astronomy
In ancient times, the first
sky observations were
used to measure time
and for orientation.
When humans began to grow crops,
it became necessary to determine
the best moment to cultivate
the land.
For this purpose, people started to
connect changes in the weather
to the position of the Sun
in the sky.
This was the foundation
of spherical astronomy.
One of the many contributions
from the Mesopotamia region
was the invention of the
sexagesimal numerical system,
used to divide time
into hours, minutes and seconds.
With their contributions,
these civilizations laid the
foundations for all later advances
in western astronomy.
It is known that astronomical advances in
China took place long before western
astronomy existed, having a
completely independent development.
There we find the first documented
observations of a solar eclipse,
a comet, and a supernova explosion.
In ancient Egypt, the position
of stars in the sky was used
to aid in the construction
and orientation of the pyramids.
Their most important god
was represented by the Sun,
whose journey in the
sky during day and night
symbolized the journey of the
Pharaoh through life and death.
In South America, the Tiahuanacu
people registered many constellations
with shapes of animals or other
important figures from everyday life.
The “Chacana” was the most
important constellation of the andean sky,
serving as a guide for the Altiplano
(the high plateau of the Andes) traveller
and marking different agricultural seasons
throughout the year with its position in the sky.
In Alexandria, an astronomer
called Ptolemy
used already existing catalogues to create
“The Almagest” (“The Great Compilation”),
one of the most important
works of ancient astronomy.
There he registered
forty eight constellations,
whose names are still
used in western cultures.
In America, the Mayas calculated
precisely the periods of the Sun and the Moon,
as well as some stars
such as the Pleiades,
from which they thought
their culture had originated from.
They developed cyclic calendars
with the distinctive feature that,
once they ended, the counting
would start over again.
Several centuries later the Incas
in South America
also worshiped the Sun,
whom they called “Inti”.
To identify constellations people
used the dark spots in the sky,
where they saw figures
of great symbolic meaning.
In the year 1609,
the astronomer Galileo Galilei
constructed a telescope
which he used to observe
the sky in a way that
had never been possible before.
With it he studied
the different phases of the Moon,
discovering that it was an imperfect
body contrary to common believe at the time.
He observed Jupiter's
moons and discovered
that Venus has phases
like the ones seen for the Moon.
He also showed that Earth and
the other planets orbit around the Sun.
This was the beginning of what is
now called Modern Astronomy,
where experimentation forms
the basis of research.
Under the same sky
- Cabin crew prepare for landing.
In 2009 the world celebrated
the International Year of Astronomy
to commemorate the 400th
anniversary of Galileo Galilei
building his telescope
to observe the stars.
Inspired by his work,
many people have worked bringing astronomy
to each and every corner of the world.
This is the story of one
of these initiatives.
- Here, posters.
- We took the posters out already.
- Is there another bag there?
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for receiving
us with such enthusiasm.
I would also like to present our
project, called GalileoMobile.
My name is Eva and
I come from Greece.
We have come
here from Germany,
to teach and
to learn.
Everything stems from our love
for astronomy and the sky.
We have planned, with the
two cars you have seen outside,
to make a circle,
starting from Antofagasta,
going through the north of Chile,
passing through
Bolivia, Peru
and ending up again
in Antofagasta.
During this journey we are going
to visit many schools, just like this one,
to talk about astronomy and exchange
our ideas and visions about the cosmos.
- Do you recognize this place?
- Yes.
- This place, this school
where we stand tonight
is going to be the
start of our journey,
a journey with our imagination
to the Moon, the Sun and the stars;
from the planets,
towards distant galaxies and even further.
This is a model of
our planet, right?
Is there something you
notice when I show you this?
It is very different
from this political map.
- Can you distinguish countries here?
- No.
You cannot distinguish
countries on the planet
because the borders which appear
on the map do not belong to Earth,
they are nothing but
inventions of human beings.
They are artificial borders,
and this is how our planet really looks.
And now let me
ask you a question:
What is the difference between this,
I mean, this image, and the following one?
- This picture has been
taken from the Moon
and the other one by
satellites orbiting around Earth.
Very well, so, we are looking
at Earth here, right?
I found the talk
very interesting,
I liked the last video they
showed the most because it was as
if one could actually travel
into space with one's imagination,
to me it felt like being aboard
a spacecraft.
- I did not know there were
two types of galaxies,
such as the ellipticals and the spirals.
This is what I did not know, and now I do.
I like to observe
the Moon because
I find a beauty in it
unlike anything else.
I am very passionate
about space.
- If you observe
a constellation
you can see many things,
many things in a constellation,
such as.. smaller stars,
larger stars,
different types of stars,
different colors of stars and things like that.
- What always attracted me
the most about this project
was not the trip, nor the landscape;
it was not to teach anything to anyone,
it was to create...
well, not even create, but
to stimulate the mind a bit further,
perhaps the critical capacity to acknowledge
what surrounds you, in the children.
The only thing I cared about was that the
children would look at something
and ask themselves “why”.
The answer I am sure
I cannot provide,
but I would like that children look
at the sky and say “why are the stars there?”,
or at the rainbow and ask “how is it formed?”,
or look at a plant and say “why is it green?”
The subject, astronomy,
in a way can help them
looking at the world in this way
because it is very impressive,
because we all see the stars,
because the sky is something that unites us all.
It is true, we have all seen the stars, it does
not matter if in the northern or southern hemisphere,
they have made us all wonder
why are they there.
- This galaxy here,
what type of galaxy is it?
- Spiral.
- And why is it a spiral?
It looks like a..
- Snail.
- Does it look like a snail?
Yes, it does.
- So this is a spiral galaxy and this one,
for example, this galaxy up here?
- What does it look like?
- An ellipse.
Exactly, it looks like an ellipse!
Because if you look closely it is almost round.
And these are all different galaxies
that exist in the Universe.
- This one here, what is it?
- Elliptical.
- Elliptical.. And this one here?
- A spiral.
- This is a spiral, and this one here?
- This project is itinerant, not only
in that it follows a road track,
but also because the people
participating in it are changing.
Some arrive, some leave.
- The traveling team is composed
of ten people during the whole journey.
>From these ten people,
three are the filming crew,
two are the drivers and
five are GalileoMobile members.
These people are changing, only two
of them are traveling the full two months
and others just travel for some weeks
depending on their available time.
For example, I am leaving now,
I will still be working
on the project but not
on the field, so to speak.
There are other people
coming to take our place.
But of course, the people
who are going back
will be involved in this project
for at least another year.
- Hello!
- We need...
- Wait, wait
- What do we need?
- You two do the opening talk,
I will stay here to help.
- The “astronomy window”
is a frame, so to speak,
where we place some posters
with information about our activities
and also about astronomy
in general, and which we use
to explain astronomical
concepts to the children.
At the beginning
we will give the opening talk
and then we are going to explain briefly
what we have here in the astronomy window.
Also if the Sun is shining we are going
to mount the telescopes outside and observe it.
We have also been given
two rooms for activities.
We are going to separate
the children into two groups
and try to do the activities
simultaneously in these two rooms.
- First, for example,
I want you to pass
this filter around
and look through it,
but careful, not at the Sun!
Only look around you.
- And, what happens?
- And tell me what happens
- Here is the Sun, and this is Mercury,
Very small, right? Very very small.
What you are seeing here
is the outer layer of the Sun.
- How do you see the world
through the blue window?
- Everything is blue.
- Everything is blue, right?
- And through the red window?
- Everything is red.
- Everything is red!
- Do you know this character here?
- Do you know him? Who is he?
- This character...
- We have him both in the picture and live.
- Do you know who I am?
- No.
- Come on, he's getting sad,
introduce him!
- He is a famous scientist,
the most famous astronomer of all.
Four hundred years ago,
this boy (laughter),
for the first time
used a telescope
to observe the sky, and he
discovered many things.
For the first time he realized that,
for example, planets orbit around the Sun,
and that planets have moons.
He was a great thinker.
- His name, please!
- His name is...
- What is his name?
- His name is...
- Ga-li-leo...
- Ga-li-leo...
- Mobile!! (Reading the T-shirt)
- No!
- GALILEO GALILEI!!!
- Galileo Galilei.
- He was italian.
- All of a sudden our teacher told us,
"you have to go to the auditorium
because they are going to
tell you about the solar system".
They told us about astronomy,
that is what they told us.
We pretended that
I was Mercury,
and my friends
were the Sun,
Mercury, Neptune
and the rest of the planets.
They also told us
about that planet..
the.. the last planet,
the one that was eliminated
because it was very small
and the Sun was too big.
- I took part in the activity where
we formed the Solar System family,
and we counted how many
steps it contains...
One starts counting
five steps, eight steps,
and then one hundred
and two hundred steps.
So, this is the
activity I took part in.
This small town is
important because
of its museum, because of
the stories of the Incas,
and also the Spaniards
who invaded Tiahuanacu.
Since the beginning I was
convinced that the same
project could take place
in any other part of the world.
but, why finally South America?
I think there is a very important
reason for this,
besides from our own personal
connection with South America.
The reason is the
andean tradition in astronomy,
the cultural heritage here
and how people
relate to the sky.
We are talking about the Altiplano,
a place where, during the dry season,
it has the clearest
sky in the world.
We are on a high plateau
on the Andes mountains,
between 3000 and 5000
meters above sea level.
Here people have traditions,
from their ancestors,
the Tiahuanacu, other cultures,
the Incas, that we know much better.
All these cultures related
to the sky, to the Sun,
to the constellations because
of agriculture and ceremonial purposes,
but these traditions stay
with people, the elders mostly.
What remains subconsciously
is a way to perceive the cosmos,
a way of looking at the Universe
and think of life within it.
It has the stars, it has nature...
These people have a connection
to nature which is much stronger than ours.
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- So, as I was saying, our people also
had their own astronomical knowledge.
As did the people in Europe
and elsewhere, they knew the stars,
they were familiar with
a series of astronomical phenomena;
our people also had
their own knowledge,
for example, they had
their own constellations,
and the constellations of every ethnicity
are related to the animals they know,
the things they use, their gods,
which are different in different cultures.
Here, for example, we are
going to watch the winter sky,
which is the sky we can see at this time
of the year in the southern hemisphere.
It is a very interesting
system, this relation
between astronomy,
nature and the andean world,
because people here always talk
about the “Pachamama”, the Mother Earth,
and the “Alajpacha”, what is high above,
that is, it is very important to them.
The world above is where the stars are,
where the Sun and the Moon move,
and the world below, “Manquapacha”
so you see, this relation for them is very natural.
It is important because these
constellations of the andean world,
the andean constellations, as I call them,
are natural indicators for different tasks.
For example, for agricultural
activities there are certain
constellations that, according to
their appearance during the year,
people know which type of work needs to be done,
especially the wise men, the “Amautas”
and the “Yatiris”, who are constantly observing.
And they know, for example, when
the time for sowing is approaching,
and they start to observe certain stars which
will tell them when exactly they have to sow.
Depending on the brightness
and the position of these
stars they know that the
sowing season has started.
The same thing happens
for the harvest,
which is indicated by the position of the
Southern Cross, which they call “Chacana”.
When they see it is about to reach its
highest point, perfectly perpendicular,
they know that the harvesting
season has started.
If they do it later, then the cold
and frost could catch up with the harvest.