A universe to explore
I HAVE just returned from Fukuoka in Japan, where I attended the latest in a series of conferences about communicating astronomy to the public.
The conferences are organised by the International Astronomical Union, the world body of professional astronomers.
Fukuoka, with a population of nearly 1.5 million people, is the largest city on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
The conference, which attracted 455 participants, was held at Fukuoka’s new Science Centre, which opened last year. As one would expect, the majority were from Japan, and a significant number of those attending were from eastern and southeastern Asia.
Altogether, 53 countries were represented, including quite a number from the US, Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. I was also interested to meet and speak with several delegates who were the only representatives of their countries, such as those from Bangladesh, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Of course, there were several planetarium professionals there, but these conferences are not specifically about planetaria. They are about all types of methods and aspects of helping people understand astronomy and the great discoveries and research of today.
One of the particularly interesting sessions early in the conference, however, included the role of planetariums as a potential benefit to sufferers of autism spectrum disorder. The Greenwich Planetarium in the United Kingdom has made a special study of this, and has found that people benefit from clear, colourful images and higher light levels.
Their study showed that it was necessary to sacrifice some of the excitement and surprise in order to produce a calm and safe environment for those attending the show. It is all part of making astronomy accessible to everyone!
A theme of several presentations was “astronomy communication for a better world”. One of the significant topics here is the difference in understanding of astronomy between different countries in the world. In certain countries, there is a great need for astronomy communication of any kind in order help people understand the topic. There is no shortage of interest; in fact, there is a definite thirst for knowledge among people from many walks of life. Seeing the wonderful work that some astronomy educators are doing in African countries, for example, where schoolchildren are so thrilled to be looking through their school’s telescope for the first time, is inspirational.
Probably the greatest discussions and presentations at this conference, however, centred on misinformation, “fake news”, and astronomical stories that have some elements of truth in them but are embellished in such a way so as to include a lot of false statements. Today, young people, especially, are getting more and more of their news through social media. It’s a powerful tool, but it also has the disadvantage that a piece of misinformation can spread very quickly and become accepted by millions and millions of people.
There was much talk about how we can do our best to solve this problem. The general opinion is that since social media is here to stay, perhaps the solution should focus on how we can improve science understanding through reliable social media. This has many thinking caps on, and I am sure that groups of us will be investigating the best ways to do this. Human psychology has an important place here, too.
As I wrote in 2013 following the previous such conference in Warsaw, Poland, these gatherings of people involved in astronomy communication result in rewarding exchanges of ideas. One of my most lasting memories of this conference will be meeting up for the first time with Hirami Funakoshi of Anpachi, in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, who cast computers and electronics aside to build a wooden model showing the orbits of Earth and Mars, and how the distance between them varies. Sometimes, simplicity is the best way!