58 ASTRONOMY • DECEMBER 2019
took viewers through a journey
inside the secret world of the
human cell. Finally, a Nobel
Laureate panel featured discus-
sions from Barry Barish, Betzig,
Elizabeth Blackburn, Edvard
Moser, May-Britt Moser, Riess,
Brian Schmidt, George Smoot,
Strickland, Robert Wilson, and
Kurt Wüthrich.
Day 4
On Friday the 28th, Starmus
rolled on. The session chair on
this day was Natalie Batalha, who
introduced Martine-Nicole Rojina
of the Sister Moon Project; Clive
Neal, who spoke on getting back
to the Moon; astronaut Nicole
Stott, who described Earth from
space through her art projects;
Blackburn, who spoke on doing
better science; and astronaut
Helen Sharman, who discussed
going from Mars to the stars.
After a break, Alan Stern dis-
cussed the New Horizons mission
that explored Pluto and the
Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule;
cosmonaut Gennady Padalka
described life aboard the
International Space Station; Long
Xiao outlined China’s planned
program of lunar exploration;
Schmidt talked about the first
stars in the universe; and Eugene
Kaspersky, Mikhail Kornienko,
Marco Preuss, and Stott held a
panel on the future of space.
Starmus is a relentless bath in
intellectual wonder, moving from
late morning each day to late at
night, with talk after talk and
hallway conversation after hallway
conversation leaving one’s head
spinning. It’s really the ultimate
networking moment for the high-
est levels of astronomers, scien-
tists, astronauts, techno wizards,
musicians, and artists. And yet all
of it is widely open to the public.
Days of these amazing talks leave
one almost overwhelmed but
always hungry for more.
Day 5
The festival’s final day was no
letdown. Saturday the 29th began
with a special and quite amaz-
ing concert: The orchestra this
time teamed up with Nobel Prize
laureate May-Britt Moser, who
walked us through the workings
of the brain. She was accom-
panied by Vai on guitar. The
Trondheim soloists joined in with
a string chamber to give us a deep
dive into the space, time, and
memory of human brains. It was
incredible.
Then session chair Brian
Malow introduced the final day’s
talks: Smoot on the history of cos-
mological research, Batalha on
extrasolar planets and their dis-
coveries with the Kepler Space
Telescope, Barish on multi-
messenger astronomy, and
Charpentier on gene therapy. The
last set of discussions consisted of
a panel on life in the universe
with Batalha, Dawkins, Michel
Mayor, Rafael Rebolo, and Tarter.
The final act of Starmus on
Saturday night was a star party
— not so much a viewing event,
but a farewell party inside the
Samsung Hall itself.That’s a wrap
It’s not easy to calculate the value
of the Starmus Festival. There’s
nothing else like it in the world.
We had most of the surviving
Apollo astronauts on hand, as well
as other astronaut-explorers, more
than a dozen Nobel Prize laure-
ates, many other important scien-
tists, incredible rock and orches-
tral musicians, and artists of all
types. The interchanges that take
place at Starmus are priceless and
lead to all manner of creative fall-
out. Such was the situation again
at Starmus V in Switzerland. It
left us all wondering how the next
Starmus will top this one, as each
successive festival has done. For
more on the Starmus Festival, see
http://www.Starmus.com.David J. Eicher is Editor of
Astronomy, coauthor with Brian May
of Mission Moon 3-D, and a member
of the Starmus Festival Board of
Directors.- George Smoot, cosmologist
and Nobel Prize laureate,
describes what we know
about the origin and
evolution of the cosmos. - Nobel Prize winner May-
Britt Moser led an orchestral
exploration and talk about
her research on spatial cells
in the brain, which are how
we know where we are.
Following the concert, she
hugs Steve Vai. - Astrophysicist and chemist
Ewine van Dishoeck,
president of the International
Astronomical Union,
describes the professional
astronomy group’s rich 100-
year history and the
chemistry of the cosmos. - Astrophysicist Natalie
Batalha, co-lead investigator
of the Kepler Space
Telescope, describes the
state of our knowledge on
exoplanets and where
discovery and research will
go from here. - Nobel Prize winner Robert
Wilson, co-discoverer of the
cosmic microwave
background radiation in
1964, appeals to the world for
a coherent reaction to the
growing problem of global
warming. - Astronaut Sandy Magnus
flew on two space shuttle
missions and spent time on
the International Space
Station. On June 27, she
recounted her experiences in
Earth orbit and discussed the
future of space exploration.
7. Nobel Prize winner Barry
Barish, one of the discoverers
of gravitational waves with
the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-wave
Observatory, describes his
findings and the likelihood of
numerous further detections
of merging black holes and
neutron stars.
8. Brian May and David J.
Eicher pose with a copy of
their book, Mission Moon
3-D, following the Starmus
press conference. STARMUS/MAX
ALEXANDER
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