OPENING CEREMONY OF THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY (2009)
(The conference language will be English, with simultaneous interpretation English/French.) Preliminary Programme
Thursday, January 15, Room I
8h00-9h00: Registration and free visit of exhibition
9h00-10h15 – Inauguration by government ministers and important personalities Opening by UNESCO Director-General, Mr Koïchiro Matsuura Greetings by government ministers and important personalities International Year of Astronomy: Vision and goals, by Catherine Cesarsky, IAU President Speech of the President & CEO of Thales Alenia Space, Reynald Seznec
Coffee Break - 10h15-10h45
Moderator: Jean-Claude Carrière 10h45-12h00: Astronomy: History and Culture The First Astronomers: Astronomy over Four Millenia Juan Antonio Belmonte (Spain) Mayan Astronomy Julieta Fierro (Mexico) Islamic Astronomy George Saliba (USA) Skies of the World, a Multicultural Experience Franco Pacini (Italy) Seeing the Invisible: Seventy-five years of radio astronomy: highlights & future challenges Govind Swarup (India)
12h00-12h30: From Galileo (400yrs) to Apollo (40yrs) From Galileo to Einstein Francoise Balibar (France)
Lunch Break – 12h30-14h00
Moderator: Tim de Zeeuw 14h00-15h00: From Galileo (400yrs) (continuation) The New Frontier: Exploration of the Solar System André Brahic (France) Echoes of creation: Discovery of the Big-Bang fossil radiation Bob Wilson (USA)
15h-15h30: Modern astronomy: discoveries on our origins The First Moment: As the Universe came into being Lord Martin Rees (UK)
Coffee Break - 15h30-16h00
Moderator: Jan Palous 16h00-17h00: Modern astronomy: discoveries on our origins (continuation) A Multitude of Worlds: Extra-solar planets Michel Mayor (Switzerland) IYA2009: Astronomy for Humankind, Cornerstones and Universe Awareness Kevin Govender (South Africa)
Live video-conference with the South Pole Station, preceded by a film of installation of telescopes, life in Concordia Questions and answers from astronomers
Evening: Reception at the Palais de la Découverte hosted by the IYA French Committee Address by Baruch Blumberg, Nobel prize winner in medicine 1976, prev Director of NASA Astrob Inst. Film on music “The Planets” (G. Holst) from José-Francisco Salgado (Adler Planetarium, USA)
Friday, January 16 , Room I
8h30-9h00: free visit of exhibition
Moderator: Beatriz Barbuy 9h00-9h30 Live video-conference with the European Very Large Telescope in Paranal and observers in Chile; visit the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and participate in a session of imaging at the end of the night on one of the 8m-telescopes
Moderator: Beatriz Barbuy 9h30-10h30 The Biggest Question of All: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life André Brack (France) The question of parallel universe Hubert Reeves (France/Canada)
Coffee Break – 10h30-11h00
Moderator: Gang Zhao 11h00-12h30: Stars: life and death Pulsars – progress and puzzles Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (UK) Beautiful death for a Star: Planetary Nebulae Silvia Torres-Peimbert (Mexico) Cosmic Explosions: The Violent Supernovae Ken'ichi Nomoto (Japan)
Lunch break – 12h30-14h00
Moderator: Gopal Krishna 14h00-15h30 Report from the Abyss: Massive Black Holes Reinhard Genzel (Germany) Astronomy from Space: the Hubble, Herschel and James Webb Space Telescopes Jonathan Gardner (USA) Cosmic Vision David Southwood (ESA) Closing speech Walter Erdelen (UNESCO)
Coffee break – 15h30-16h00
16h00-17h30: Remote observing and VLBI (3 parallel sessions) Observing without going: Remote Observing at Hawaii and Australia (3h a.m. in the night) Also radio observation of the Milky Way in HI-21cm with the Salsa telescope in Sweden and demonstration of Very Long Baseline Interferometry, a cooperation all over the world
Global e-VLBI demo, then all along the Conference. One cosmic source will be observed continuously for 24 hours, with radio telescopes on 6 continents streaming data in real-time to the correlator in the Netherlands via high-bandwidth fibre networks.
18h00-19h30: Reception hosted by UNESCO
19h30-21h30: Cultural event UNESCO Choir “Sun Rings” by Kronos Quartet