More than one thousand people gather to discover the universe on Starry Night.

The weather was benignant and a clear sky allowed around eleven hundred all-aged humans to peer trough the telescopes and attend the talks and activities displayed last Thursday at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”

Starry Night is an annual event aimed to get earthly intelligent creatures to be more interested in space. The event is sponsored by UF astronomy department, the Museum of Natural History, the Alachua Astronomy Club and Santa Fe College, also supported by NSF and NASA.

“FLMNH
 photo by Kristen Grace.”

Many telescopes of different types, including a few home-made, where displayed outside the museum where visitors enjoyed great views of the Moon, Jupiter and the stars.

Among the presentations, the portable planetarium was extremelly succesful, inflated to give a show on constellations, so popular that free tickets ran out in some cases more than an hour before the show.

“FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”

The 3D-show hosted by Robert Morehead and the “astronomy tools” demonstration carried on by Prof Stephen Eikenberry, both of them unleashing their inner showmen, made the delights of children and grown ups, specially when fruit and other vegetables were frozen using liquid nitrogen and afterwards used to hammer nails or shattered like glass, to the general amazement.

One of the more expected events was the lecture given by Dr. Michael Mumma, Director of the Goddard Center for astrobiology about the search for life in Mars.

Thanks to the Florida Museum of Natural History and the photographer for all the nice pictures. You can see the full galery on the museum's facebook page.

See you next year!

Children enjoy as stuff gets frozen.
"FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”

Dr. Michael Mumma amazes the audience
“FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”

Making Galaxies
“FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”

Meteorites!
“FLMNH photo by Kristen Grace.”