Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal Campo Grande, 83 1749-081 Lisboa Portugal
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Opening hours
Monday to Friday: 1.00-7.00 pm Saturday: 9.30 am-5.30 pm
Guided tours
Wed. and Thu. at 3.30pm *
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required
Pedro Abreu | Sofia Andringa | Catarina Espírito Santo
* other timing possible
Exhibition text
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From the Skies to the Universe
EXHIBITION | May 2 - July 26 | Exhibition Room - 2nd floor | Free entrance
Starry skies are a source of poetic inspiration and a practical guide for daily life. It is also a signal for the existence of world beyond our horizons.
This exhibition proposes a journey along the challenges posed by the knowledge of the sky. From the new sky of the southern hemisphere at the time of the discoveries, to the big scientific questions of today: from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, from cosmic ray detection to the confirmation of the big theories of the Universe.
Event co-organized by Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas (LIP) and the National Library of Portugal (BNP).
LIP was created in 1986 as the national reference laboratory for collaboration with CERN. Its research domains encompass experimental particle and astroparticle physics, radiation detectors and associated electronics, advanced computing and medical physics applications. Naturally, scientific outreach and education are also part of the activity of LIP.
I. Watching and Measuring the Skies The firmament has always been an object of admiration and contemplation. In the sixteenth century the practical knowledge of the skies allowed for oceanic navigations. Also the completion of celestial cartography in both hemispheres was made with growing precision. In the nineteenth century new instruments and techniques provided more sophisticated results and increased accuracy in the characterization of the skies.
II. Cosmic Rays: Messengers of the Universe Not only visible light from the Sun and other stars but also many other particles reach us from the cosmos: photons of different wavelengths, electrons and anti-electrons, protons and atomic nuclei that produce particle showers in the atmosphere, neutrinos that cross the Earth end-to-end. Cosmic rays were discovered one hundred years ago and for decades represented a laboratory for particle physics. Today, the path continues in accelerators but also with the observation of astronomical objects, with detectors in deep mines or in large areas on the surface of the Earth.
III. Known and Unknown Universe What do we know about the Universe? We are made of the same matter as starts and distant galaxies, we know the elementary particles and the interactions between them. But new observations indicate that at large scales there is another kind of matter, that has mass but does not emit light, and another force, that works against gravitational atraction. The unknown Universe is still wider than the Universe we know.
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