It can be visited in the Museum of Science and the Cosmos until 22nd May. Next Wednesday, April 6th, there will be an inauguration ceremony with the women researchers at the IAC Elena Khomenko and Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres, with a talk and a concert by Paula Espinoza, a student of Astrophysics and finalist in the televisión programme “La Voz”. In addition Paula is the author of the sound track of the exhibition.

“AstronomAs” is an exhibition in two formats, physical and digita, whose aim is to show the role of women in astronomy, and to stimulate scientific and technological vocations. It includes information about more than 300 women astronomers, and their fields of work. After visiting several Spanish cities the physical version of the exhibition has arrived in Tenerife via the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Museum of Science and the Cosmos (MCC), where you can visit it until May 22nd.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on April 6th with an evemt which starts at 18:00 in the Meeting Hall of the Museum. It will be opened by Nayra Rodríguez Eugenio, outreach astrophsicist at the IAC, followed by a presentation by Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres Rodríguez, a researcher at the IAC, and a member of the team which ha produced AstronomAs. After that Elena Khomenko, also an IAC researcher will give a talk about her professional career and the work which she is doing now. 

After that Paula Espinosa, an astrophysicist and the author of the sound track of the exhibition will give a short concert for the audience, as well as describing her experience as a student of astrophysics. The singer and composer, who is currently finishing her studies in Edinburgh, is popular because of her participation in the televisión programme “La Voz” in which she reached the final in 2020. She was also the winnter of the most recent edition of the “Alberto Delgado” competition for young musicians patronized by the Cajacanarias foundation. Attendance at this event is open and free of charge until full capacity is reached. The temporary exhibition can be visited at no additional cost with museum admission.

“AstronomAs” women who played a leading role in the development of astronomy

The object of the exhibition is to give publicity to the work of women professional astronomers with examples, both current and historic. The digital version is available on the web, www.astronomas.org, and includes information about more than 300 women astronomers who work, or have worked, in one of the fourteen disciplines which make us the subject. One of the characteristics of this project is diversity, because it shows a variety of geographical and ethnic origins, and professional categories.

The exhibition is a descendent of “Con A de astrónomas” (“With A for women astronomers”) which was produced in 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, and has toured hundreds of cultural centres, libraries, and secondary schools in the whole of Spain in the past decade. With these same aims “AstronomAs” also comes as a physical version of 16 explanatory panels, which is now being presented in Tenerife.

Interactive,multimedia project

As well as information about each of the women astronomers and her work, the exhibition contains a variety of material, including the explanation of the context of astronomy within science, its relation to culture (cine, literatura, art etc), downloadable teaching notebooks, interactive games, podcasts, and videos. All of this surounded with an original sound-track composed byh Paula Espinosa.

“AstronomAs” has been produced by an interdisciplinary gorup of professonals who belong to the fields of astronomy (perofessional and amateur), philosophy, the history of science, Studies of culture and gender, in Secondary and Higher Education. It has been funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology of the Ministry of Science and Innovation,and the Spanish Astronomical Society with the collaboration of many instituttions and academic centres,among them the IAC.

Organized by: The Unit of Communication and Scientific Culture (UC3) of the IAC, the Museum of Science and the Cosmos (Museums fo Tenerife) and the AstronomAs working group.

Contacts: Nayra Rodríguez Eugenio (uc3 [at] iac.es (uc3[at]iac[dot]es)) Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres (adlcr [at] iac.es (adlcr[at]iac[dot]es)).