A tribute to the Camino de Santiago on the occasion of the awarding of the Prince of Asturias Prize Scientists CORUNESA museums Monographs of Science Communication Editing made with the sponsorship of 05 Milky Way   E n September 2004 the jury! How is the Milky Way from the Prince of Prizes in the sky? n the nineteenth century French astronomer Camille Flammarion Asturias acknowledged the Way of the Milky Way described as "an extensive trail blanqueSantiago as the" place of pigs (which) stands as an air arc across the starry canopy. " Years ago that the Milky Way pilgrimage and a meeting between vision is no longer a family because of the iluminapersonas and peoples, through night-tion of towns and cities, which the centuries, has become a symbol just shows a few stars Brilliant. However, just to get away from fraternity and structuring of these lights on a clear night and no moon to the naked eye to distinguish it as a European consciousness. " It was a ribbon of light and pale edges irreprecisamente this popular character, ing across the sky. inclusive and multidisciplinary Illustrations for what "Les Etoiles du ciel et les curiosita." Camille Flammarion, 1881 led to the creation of Milky Way, a program that planetarium! What is the relationship between the Via explores the relationship between the Milky Way and Santiago? Pilgrimage route to Santiago and the track so pale all the cultures of ancient light that describe our trace the Milky Way galaxy as a route that crosses the sky, or even as the path that connects the earth in the sky. Annunciation E C of the Apostle For almost twenty years the planetarium of the Maison des Sciences has received questions about the Milky Way of hundreds of thousands of spectators. They confirmed that the astronomical knowledge is also a way in which the confluence of science, geography, history, poetry and mythology. The questions that are answered here is a selection of the most frequent. Catedral de Santiago and the sky. The astronomical phenomena often seen as divine signs, as in the Christian tradition in the passage of the Adoration of the Magi, or at the very legend of the discovery of the tomb of St. James, whose location was revealed by a flood of stars fall from the sky. The partnership between the Milky Way and the Camino de Santiago is fixed permanently in the Codex Calixtinus (XII century), under which the Apostle appeared to Charlemagne fixing the Milky Way as a guide to reach Compostela. ! Is it true that the Milky Way serves as a celestial guide for pilgrims coming to Santiago? P OCO before sunrise on a summer day, at the time that the pilgrims began their journey, the Milky Way stretches east-west direction. However, his stroke bright moves like the rest of the vault of the sky so that with the passage of time are parties that did not see before, others are hidden and extremes seem to slip by the horizon. In fact, depending on the season and time of night, the Milky Way can point in any direction. Furthermore, to identify rudimentary form of the route to the West simply walk into the sunset or, at night, using the Polar Star, always fixed on the North.   ! Can you see during every night of the year? Gual that the sun during the day, at night the whole sky moves around making stars out of the horizon and put this in the west. In addition, the stars (and parts of the Milky Way) that we see in one night change over the months it often speak of heaven characteristic of each season. Thus, in our latitudes, the Milky Way appears dramatically in the short summer nights, much more moderate in winter and disappears almost completely in spring, when barely rises above the horizon. ! How are explained in the past the Milky Way? a Milky Way has attracted the attention of people of all time, which gave names and different explanations. The Bushmen of the Kalahari thought the Earth was inside a gigantic animal and the Milky Way was its backbone, the backbone on which argued the night. The Chinese saw in it a river through which roamed the souls of the dead, for it was the Egyptian Nile, which continued until the skies of irrigating also the lodgings of the gods, and according to the Incas, that river was carrying up to the sky water which would then fall as rain. Others saw there mythological snakes, welding of the celestial hemispheres, and in many cases, the road linking the earth with the sky. I L ! Where does the name Milky Way? Source the Greek myth that Zeus was passing by the husband of a woman named Alcmena and their encounter was born a child who called Hercules. The wife of Zeus, Hera, he learned what had happened and tried to kill the creature by sending two snakes, but the small strangled without difficulty. Upon instructions of Zeus, the god Hermes waited to Hera fell asleep and deposited a Hercules in his lap so that the child could suck the food that would make him immortal. Hera awoke and abruptly severed the child from her chest, leaving a trail of milk escape that was shed for the sky: the Milky Way. C "The birth of the Milky Way" Rubens (1577-1640). Museo del Prado ! Is the Milky Way equally in all directions? to shape the edges of the Milky Way is quite irregular, as is the density of light along its length. In some areas rich with dark patches, while others are characterized by an abundance of bright stars, nebulae and star clusters. The highest density was seen in the area between the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio, region L where are the center of the galactic disk and the large central bulb, hidden behind large masses of interstellar dust. M101, spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major by passing the Milky Way   El Camino de Santiago as images obtained from satellite ! How big is the Milky Way? L distance units as we use to describe our surroundings (meters, kilometers, etc.). are too small for the huge distances between planets or stars. Therefore, astronomers use units as the second light or light year, which are defined as the distance a beam of light travels in the At present telescopes are used not only sensitive to visible light, but the rest of radiation that make up the electromagnetic spectrum. The comments on radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma have enabled us to obtain very detailed maps of our galaxy ! How is the Milky Way through a telescope? alileo was first to explore the sky using telescopes that he himself built. In 1610 he published his findings, explaining, among many other things, that the circle of light from the Milky Way "is nothing more than the congregation of G countless stars. " Almost all of them have a brightness too weak to distinguish with the naked eye, but they are so that, together, causing the illusion of a ribbon of silvery brightness and diffuse that travels the sky from one extreme to another. empty space in a second or a year respectively. At this scale measure of the Moon is 1.2 seconds light of the Earth, the sun light to 8 seconds and the star nearest to 4.2 light years. Logically, these units are not practical at land, because the light takes only 2.5 thousandths of a second to travel the nearly 800 kilometers. separating Roncesvalles to Santiago. The disk of our galaxy has a diameter of about 100,000 light years, and the nearest galaxy is only 80,000 light years away, indicating that the galaxies can be relatively near each other. By rough, your provision could be compared with that of the players on a football field, which reach even touched. Sombrero Galaxy ! Is the Milky Way galaxy, a special? on the help of telescopes can be seen in the sky multitude of galaxies. Many are spirals like the Milky Way, according to the prospect of appearing opposite such as the Whirlpool Galaxy, or singing, as the Sombrero Galaxy. Other galaxies are classified as elliptical, and balloons are huge stars in which there is no record whatsoever. Lenticular galaxies constitute a sort of hybrid between C Spiral (with bulbs and disc) and elliptical (no spiral arms). However, not all galaxies have features as defined and presented many forms so strange that it can only be classified as irregular galaxies. In some places in the universe is even possible to do Interlaced in the middle of galaxies collide, and it is believed that this kind of interaction can make the galaxies evolve from one type to another.   ! What shape is the Milky Way? ated that our solar system is part of the Milky Way, how is it as difficult as finding out how a forest from the inside. At the end of the eighteenth century astronomers began to accumulate evidence that the Sun could be one among millions of stars, which together form our galaxy. Imagined that its structure was that of a flattened disk, similar to the Andromeda galaxy and others who could see in the sky. As we look from our position within the disc, we see a band where the density of stars is much higher. Today we know that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy in which stars are distributed among a large central bulge and the galactic disk, one of whose arms spirals is the Sun. D Andromeda Galaxy ! How is the Milky Way from space? No one night Earth itself to us any hidden half of the sky, and with it part of the circle of the Milky Way. If we could see the sky from a location in the space next to our planet, the absence of "soil" would contemplate the Milky Way to complete, as a ring closed in on itself. ! How many galaxies are there in the universe? n 1995, the camera of the Hubble Space Telescope took a very long exposure to photograph the confines of the visible universe. He discovered that on the surface of sky that cover a postage stamp situated 30 meters away, had more than 3,000 galaxies. This means that across the sky would have some 80,000 million. And this number should be added galaxies whose light is too weak to be seen by the telescope. Of all the galaxies, only the Andromeda and the Magellanic Clouds can be seen with the naked eye. It is odd to think that all the stars we see with the naked eye are part of the Milky Way. E E "The Milky Way" Higinio, "Poeticón Astronomicon," 1535. National Library ! Apart from stars, is there something more in galaxies? os most notable components of galaxies are the stars, of which there are a variety of sizes, colors and brightness. It is assumed that some of the stars have planets orbiting around them, but by the time the technology allows to detect its presence only by indirect methods. Apart from stars and planets, galaxies contain large amounts of interstellar gas and dust. However, by observing the gravitational effects of a galaxy on the matter which is in its vicinity, has been discovered that the visible matter constitutes less than 10% of the galactic mass. The rest is the so-called dark matter, and its nature is one of the great mysteries of modern science. L Masses of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula. Hubble Space Telescope   ! ¿They remain immobile the stars within the galaxy? os one hundred billion stars in the Milky Way are divided between the central bulb and the galactic disk. The stars of the disc are concentrated in arms spirals, whose rotation drags the stars in a movement around the center of the galaxy. Despite traveling to 760,000 km / h, the Sun takes 250 million years to go a full orbit, that time is defined as "galactic years." A year ago the Galactic, that is, the last time that our star was in the position it occupies today, the dinosaurs had not yet appeared on Earth. The solar system has not yet met the 20-year galactic, and we know that the sun will stop shining before he meets 40. L Milky Way is a planetarium program produced by the Maison des Sciences in collaboration with the Pamplona Planetarium and the Planetarium in Madrid "Milky Way and constellations of the northern hemisphere" Luz Antequera "Milky Way and constellations of the Southern Hemisphere" Luz Antequera ! What constellations easily recognizable across the Milky Way? n the vicinity of the Milky Way are some of the most spectacular constellations in the sky. In the Can Mayor (CMA) stressed Sirius, the brightest star in our sky. Very near there three stars lined up, the "Tres Marias", form the belt of Orion (Ori), in the mythological giant who draw attention Rigel and Betelgeuse, two of the first magnitude. Following the Milky Way appears in the constellation Cassiopeia (Cas), whose stars are arranged in the form of "M" or "W", as its position with respect to the observer. Deneb in the constellation of E Swan (Cyg), Vega in the Lyre (lyr) and Altair in the Eagle (Aql) are the stars that dominate the summer nights forming a so-called "Summer Triangle." Finally, the southernmost part of the Milky Way that can be seen from the latitude for which runs the Camino de Santiago coincides with the constellation Sagittarius (Sgr), whose brightest stars seem to draw the silhouette of a centaur stringing his bow. Al final del Camino is the sea Scientists CORUNESA museums Design and Layout OCTO PUBLICATIONS