Niños Curiosos, Mentores Creativos

Last week we had the opportunity to visit the «Luis Enrique Erro» planetarium of the National Polytechnic Institute with a double purpose: to enjoy with the family the projection that is being shown and to learn a bit more about the conjunction of planets happening this month of February 2025 (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter are aligned. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will also be part of this alignment of planets, even though they will not be visible to the naked eye.)

The idea of visiting the planetarium arose because of our son’s interest in astronomy (something that we already had the opportunity to share in another post entitled «Children and astronomy»).

We really liked the activities that were carried out to interest children in astronomy such as the elaboration of space rockets and astronauts as well as distributing small explanatory infographics about what a conjunction of planets is.

Something that we also liked a lot was the talk that was held inside the planetarium before the screening: in this talk it was explained in simple words but in detail what a conjunction of planets is, why these astronomical phenomena happen, how often they happen and why they are important for science, among other things. At the end of the talk there was a Q&A session for the entire audience, and it was very interesting to see that those who participated the most were the children and some of their questions were really very interesting and left the speaker pleasantly surprised. Personally the question that stuck with me was: «Do the planets really form a straight line when they align?» to which the speaker replied no, that from our perspective on Earth the planets seem to form in a straight line.

A curious fact: in Mexico there are more than forty planetariums, and the «Luis Enrique Erro» planetarium is one of the best known, named in honor of one of the most important Mexican astronomers who, among other things, was one of the founders of the National Polytechnic Institute and promoted scientific education in our country.

We invite you to visit the «Luis Enrique Erro» planetarium (or any other planetarium near your town) as soon as you can: it is an excellent opportunity to spend time with the family and bring our sons and daughters closer to science!

If you would like us to write more about this topic or related topics, please feel free to send us an email.

See you later!