On Wednesday, April 23, I set off for the Starmus Festival in La Palma, Canary Islands, along with my pal and fellow editor Michael Bakich and his wife Holley. But we didn’t get very far. Multiple delays from Tucson to Dallas meant we would miss our flight to Madrid. We had to wait until Friday the 25th to take off, and so arrived at the bustling Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands a day and a half late.
Nonetheless, we freshened and jumped right into the fray. I hosted the Festival, introducing the speakers, and Michael accompanied me, with his now famous exercises for the audience between talks. This was a somewhat smaller Starmus due to the locality — we had hundreds instead of a few thousands, but everyone was electrified to hear the talks by great astronomers, astronaut-explorers, Nobel Prize laureates in all the sciences, and to hear the spectacular music that we present at the event.
Michael and I jumped right into the Saturday afternoon second session. Before we arrived, the talks were wonderful, so we heard. There was John Mather on the Big Bang; Michael Mayor on exoplanets; Bernhard Schölkopf on Artificial Intelligence; Jane Goodall on reasons for future hope; Steven Chu on carbon capture; and Chris Hadfield on space junk. And many more. It is a dizzying array of simply amazing topics spanning lots of what is on thinking peoples’ minds these days. And all courtesy of our great Starmus founders, the ones who originated this solidified joy of science and music, astrophysicist Garik Israelian, and astronomer (and yeah, guitarist!) Brian May. Garik was all smiles; we very unusually missed Brian this time as he was a bit under the weather.
The talks carried on throughout Saturday afternoon. We had the space explorer Kathryn Thornton discussing rescuing satellites in space, Anousheh Ansari describing how she is dreaming big about the future of space exploration, Sara Garcia describing the potential for out-of-this-world medicine, and Juan Arsuaga talk about how we might recognize ET.
Sunday brought a special day to the events on La Palma. The 108’ Round Table occurred up at the observatory, the site of the world’s largest telescope, the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias. Distinguished minds weighed in an all manner of topics, scientific and societal, as they contemplated a special and challenging time in the world of scientific research.
The final full day of talks was again loaded with very special moments. There was Kip Thorne, the world’s leading authority on black holes, describing some of the strangest places in the universe, accompanied by his coauthor and good friend Lia Halloran, the exceptional artist who illustrated their book, The Warped Side of Our Universe. Volcanologist Marie Edmonds described the latest thinking on what is known about volcanoes, which was especially noteworthy as we sat on a chain of volcanic islands. Matt Mountain spoke on the power of astronomy to change the world. Nobel Prize winning chemist Kurt Wüthrich described dark matter in the human genome. My old friend Mario Livio told us about the quest for cosmic life.
And the final session of talks was no less spectacular. We heard from Nobel laureate Donna Strickland on laser physics. Another Nobel winner, George Smoot, described stem cell therapy automation. Our wonderful friend Jill Tarter communicated the latest thinking on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, her unique pioneering specialty. ESA astronaut Pablo Alvarez told us about roads the the cosmos. And another old friend, planetary scientist Jim Bell, closed out the festival with the search for life on other worlds.
And of course the second half of the title Starmus translates to music. There was a classical opening concert. The Sonic Universe Concert, held in a large stadium, attracted thousands from the city and featured our pals, the house band Starmus All-Stars, with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Derek Sherinian, Ash Sheehan, Tony Franklin, and Dino Jelusick, with Glenn Hughes as a special guest. They rocked the house big time, late into the night. What an amazing time we had. There was also a classical night on Sunday, with the great Montserrat Martí Cabellé, Simona Todaro Pavarotti, Luis Solana, and Víctor Carbajo. What spectacular memories these shows produced for thousands of us.
And so Starmus La Palma came to a close. But there was more! Several weeks before La Palma, we held a small-sized Starmus Festival for the first time in the United States, in Washington, D.C., which I also hosted. Held at the prestigious Kennedy Center, the festival featured an “Earth to Space” theme and was a smashing success. Speakers at the Washington Starmus included Mario Livio, Eva Villaver, Kip Thorne and Lia Halloran, Nicole Stott, and Frank Culbertson. We had a wonderful time!
Already, ideas are bubbling for future Starmus events. After the board (and mainly Garik!) recover, we’ll report on future possibilities in the coming months. Thanks to all of you who attended — I know many of you had the times of your lives, and it was a great pleasure to meet so many of you.
