Cosmictales winners awarded for their creativity

10 June, 2017 / Read time: 2 minutes

Winners of the 5th version of the Cosmictales competition met on Saturday, June 10th in the Astronomy Department of Universidad Andrés Bello to receive their respective awards and acknowledgments from Fundación Astromanía and the ALMA observatory. After the ceremony, participants had the opportunity to enjoy a movie and a presentation on astronomy in a mobile planetarium and also observe the sky through telescopes.

“We were surprised that we received so many submissions this year from different regions of Chile. We are happy about this, because our goal is to disseminate astronomic knowledge to all children and youth, inspiring curiosity and imagination, the gateway to the sciences,” shares Juan Pablo Méndez, director of Fundación Astromanía.

More than 250 participants from all over Chile competed in Cosmictales 2017, an initiative that invites the community to write stories up to 120 words related to the Cosmos and astronomy. Eight winning stories and four honorable mentions were chosen from Arica to Ancud.

For the fourth year in a row, ALMA supported the project as member of the jury and also printed booklets with the winning stories. “The artistic, creative and aesthetic contribution that Cosmictales gives astronomy never ceases to amaze us each year. This tool does a fantastic job of making a hard science such as this more approachable,” says Nicolás Lira, coordinator of ALMA's Department of Education and Outreach and one of the members of the jury.

In addition to ALMA, the jury included representatives of Universidad Andrés Bello, the Astronomy Unit of Universidad de Antofagasta, PAR Explora RM Norte, StarTres and sobrehombros.com.

After the awards ceremony, competition winners, their companions and members of the jury were invited to discover Astromania's mobile planetarium, where its content director, David Órdenes, gave a talk on exoplanets. And as the skies were clear that night, they were able to observe the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter and star clusters with telescopes from Universidad Católica's Santa Martina observatory.

The winning stories can be read here.

Additional information

ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of South Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ.