Guanajuato, Gto., February 23, 2017.-With the talk "El lugar de la Tierra en el universo; moviéndonos a casi 3 millones de km por hora", given by the astronomer Héctor Bravo Alfaro, began the activities of "UGrekafé", a program of the University of Guanajuato (UG) focused on the divulgation of science.
Through this project, renowned researchers will give talks in a café at Guanajuato city, to take scientific knowledge to different audiences. The access is free, and it will be held once a month.
At the inaugural talk, Dr. Bravo Alfaro made a quick review by the different visions the human has had throughout history about the place of earth in the universe, focusing in the geocentric conception of Ptolemean and the Heliocentric theory of Nicholas Copernicus.
Currently, he highlighted, we know very well the age of the universe, we have a clear idea of its size, we also know that the size is not constant and the universe is expanding. All this, thanks to the development of the telescopes and the advance of sciences such as physics and mathematics.
Where are we in the universe? It is not a privileged place, he said while offering "a ride" through the Milky Way, Andromeda and the Pleiades, among other celestial bodies.
Dr. Hécto Bravo, expert in galaxies and astrobiology, complemented his expo with guided observations because the talk was made in an open roof place.
In the universe, everything is in motion, sustained the researcher ascribed to the Department of Astronomy at UG, and mentioned that due to the rotation of the earth, "people who live in Ecuador travel 40,000km in 24 hours, however, they don't feel that speed because earth is too large compared to us and the atmosphere doesn't let us feel that speed."
The Milky Way also moves some tens of kilometers per second towards Andromeda, that will cause that within hundreds of million years, to crash with it, "it will be a phenomenal collision", and it is very likely for the sun to gets out of the orbit, he added.
Despite the complexity of the universe, there are numeric models that allow to accurately predict how it will behave. On the matter, he pointed: "What is nice about astrophysics is that, for more eccentric a system looks, the laws of physics that rule them are the same we can study here in the laboratory". Finally, it is about mass and gravitational pull, which we perfectly know. There are also chemical elements here and at the other end of the universe, assured in his talk.
To finalize, he invited all the attendants to go the Astronomic Observatory "La Azotea", located at UG's Central Building, where they can perform guided observations by the researchers of the House of Studies. The visits are free, and can be done during the week from 19:00 to 22:00, approximately.
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