On Being Human: Perspectives from Astronomy

Il-Ħaġar Museum and Community Cultural Centre in Victoria’s Pjazza San Ġorġ continues the series of Saturday talks programmed for this year which celebrates the tenth anniversary of its inauguration. The second will be held on Saturday 4 February at 11am.

Professor Joseph Caruana will be discussing “On being Human: Perspectives from Astronomy”. After graduating from the University of Malta, he read for a DPhil in astrophysics as a Marie Curie research fellow in a network associated with the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope NIRSpec instrument. This was in Oxford where he also tutored he tutored General Relativity and Cosmology. He then took up a postdoctoral research position in astrophysics at the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik.

Returning home, Professor Caruana now lectures on optics, astrophysics and cosmology, and the philosophy of science, having joined the Department of Physics and the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy. His main astrophysics research interests encompass the early universe, galaxy formation and evolution, and galactic dynamics. A widely-published author, he is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a member of the European Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union.

He is thus extremely qualified to treat the stark contrast between man and cosmic grandness. Many fundamental questions still remain to be answered but successive technological innovations continually expand our knowledge of the universe.  

Attendance is free, but reservations by sending an email to  events@heartofgozo.org.mt are
recommended.

Public Talk: The Gozo Airfield

Il-Ħaġar │ Heart of Gozo Museum, Cultural Centre, and Community Space is pleased to announce the first of a series of public talks for its tenth anniversary year.

In his book A Sailor’s Odyssey, British Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Browne Cunnigham – First Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope – writes, “at the Defence Committee meeting in 1938, I had pressed for airfields in Gozo to extend the defences of Malta. My suggestion was met with no response.”

In his public talk 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒐𝒛𝒐 𝑨𝒊𝒓𝒇𝒊𝒆𝒍𝒅, Gozitan poet and widely published historian and researcher Charles Bezzina delves into what five years later led the Defence Committee to change its mind on the issue, and why it was deemed necessary to construct two runways on the island of Gozo by mid-June 1943. What were the reasons that made it so essential for Gozo to have an airfield and to be built in just fifteen days?

Participation is free of charge, but booking by emailing events@heartofgozo.org.mt is recommended.