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Big crowd at the museum

500 people! Never before hosted the Natural History Museum of Geneva so many people for an opening of a temporary exhibition. Even tough it is the largest exhibition ever presented by the Museum, it is doubtless the topic of exoplanets that attracted such a crowd on the 21^st of March 2015.

Future astronomers listening to the ‘maestro’ (Credit: Philippe Wagneur, Museum Genève)

Who never dreamed of mysterious planets? Interplanetary travel? Alien life? This dream has come true in all its forms at the Museum, from the first discovery made by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, to the planets discovered by satellites to even fictional science with all its imagination.

The opening ceremony was held in presence and honor of the two Swiss astronomers and the 20th anniversary of the 51pegb discovery was celebrated and commemorated. The 500 guests were then able to admire the half spheroid museology, contemplate the wall of the planets and fly between dream and reality during the screening of an “exofilm”: A 20 minutes long film that explains the path traveled by research to date, and the one we’re going to do in our heads if one day we manage to uncover life outside our planet.

The return to Earth was then carried out in the most human way, in front of a buffet with a drink in hand.

The exhibition «Exoplanets» opened on March 21, 2015 and will close on April 4, 2016. The Natural History Museum of Geneva is located at the Malagnou road No. 1. It is open every day from 10:00 to 17:00 except on Mondays. Admission is free. More information on the website of the museum: www.ville-ge.ch/mhng