The European city of Leiden, located in the Netherlandswas the epicenter of an astronomical experiment a few weeks ago, when, by turning off all the lights, its thousands of inhabitants were able to appreciate the night sky in a way that they had not experienced before.
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On September 25, at night, as part of the Daan Roosegaarde art project, supported by UNESCO, Leiden residents were asked to turn off the lights and look at the sky from their garden, rooftop, the park of the city or on the street.
The result of this experiment, which took place between 10 and 11:30 at night, was that in addition to the stars, they were able to see the planets Jupiter and Saturn from the streets.
This event is part of the project Seeing Stars (Seeing the stars, in Spanish), with which Roosegaarde and UNESCO Netherlands seek to “bring the stars back to the streets” and recognize stargazing as a way of universal heritage.
In the Leiden experiment, astronomers with telescopes were stationed at ten points in the city to explain to the audience what they were seeing in the sky.
“Never before has the light been turned off on this scale in a city to see the stars. By removing the light, we see the stars again. At a time when governments around the world are calling for energy savings, Seeing Stars shows the beauty of scarcity,” Roosegaarde noted at the time.
(You might be interested in: Eclipse and meteor shower: the phenomena that are expected to be seen in November).
In addition, the mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, highlighted that the event was a success: “Turning off the lights is not as simple as it seems. We had to do a lot of work in advance to do this and at the same time pay attention to safety. It takes guts to carry out this project in a city like Leiden, I am enormously proud of everyone who contributed to this, but the result was also worth it, we were able to give the people of Leiden a wonderful gift.”
Following this experience in Leiden, cities such as Venice, Stockholm and Sydney have expressed interest in their own initiative Seeing Stars, as published by the official website of Leiden for the project Seeing Stars.
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