The Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre in Dubai offers plenty of facilities to encourage youths to reach for the stars, discovers
Anand Raj OK
Hasan Ahmad Al Hariri thrusts a fist-sized piece of black stone into my palm. ‘Go ahead, you can hold it,’ he says. Quite like a chunk of iron, it is metallic to the touch and cold, perhaps because it has been lying on a table in Hasan’s air-conditioned office at Dubai’s Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre.
I am holding a piece of rock that is four and a half billion years old.
‘It’s a piece of a meteorite from outer space,’ says Hasan, chief executive officer of the Dubai Astronomy Group, who spearheaded the creation of the Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre.
I’ve always been fascinated by space and science, and to hold a rock that travelled millions of miles through space before crashing into earth is a truly heady feeling. I examine it with renewed respect. Weighing around 300-400g, the stone appears to have a few veins of rust running through it.
‘You are right,’ says the genial Hasan when I mention it. ‘This rock has a lot of iron that has oxidised. ‘This, like a lot of rocks on display in this centre, was found in the Liwa desert.’
Extraterrestrial rocks are not the only highlight of the Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre in Mushrif Park, which is now preparing for the official launch following its soft opening in September. With a telescope that boasts the largest diameter lens for public observation in the region, a 100-seat digital theatre and innovation and robotics labs – as well as a Mars Habitat System and a life-size replica of the International Space Station on the way – the centre is set to become another star in Dubai’s constellation of must-visit tourist spots.
Astronomy tourism is already on Hasan’s radar; five-star resorts deep in the desert that cater to skywatchers are already attracting star-struck tourists, he says. ‘We also have plans to set up observatories in different parts of the country that will not only cater to tourists but also encourage young people to develop a thirst for science and broaden their knowledge of the skies and the stars,’ says the astronomer. ‘Once we provide them with tools to study the sky and instill a love for stars, they will develop an appetite for learning science.’
The head of the Dubai Astronomy Group can vouch for it.
‘It was my grandmother who instilled an interest in astronomy in me,’ says Hasan, his face lighting up reminiscing his growing up years in the ’60s in Dubai’s Deira.
‘She’d only need to look up at the sky to know when the weather would change; when summer would give way to winter, when we could expect the occasional rain. ‘‘It’s all there in the stars,” she’d tells us,’ he says.
Since it was the early days of electricity in Dubai, light pollution was non-existent. ‘The stars and Milky Way were visible clearly,’ says Hasan. ‘We used to spend a lot of time outdoors under the sky so to speak and it was normal to study the stars and try to learn more about them.’
Before long, thanks to his grandmother and parents who actively supported his passion to study the skies, Hasan began reaching for the stars. ‘I used to read up any book on astronomy that I could find,’ he says. ‘I was amazed at the wonders of the universe.’
He would also discuss all that he learnt with his father, Ahmad Al Hariri, a businessman, who encouraged him to read more books on science.
As the American space probes Voyager 1 and 2 took off from Cape Canaveral in the US in the 70s, so did Hasan’s dreams. ‘News about the launch grabbed my heart and I dreamed of becoming not an astronaut but an engineer who would design space probes,’ he says.
He shot off letters – ‘I typed them on an old typewriter’ – to Nasa asking a series of questions about the probes. ‘Seven months later, I received a packet of books about spacecraft from Nasa,’ he says, proudly. ‘That ignited my passion further.’ He also sought out Arabic translations of books by Arthur C Clarke and other science writers. ‘I also enjoyed watching space-related TV shows such as Dr Who and Space: 1999.’
After a stint at Etisalat, Hasan joined the Ruler’s Court as IT manager where during his free time he began working to put together an