Science fiction is one of the genres that best allow us to verify that human imagination is more reliable than we ourselves are often willing to admit. In the space of not many years, science fiction ideas that were cataloged as mere fantasies have become realities: for example, only one hundred and four years separate the publication of the novel "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne from the arrival of Apollo XI on “our” satellite. Changes have occurred more rapidly as the 20th century progressed and the 21st arrived: the script for the film Blade Runner (freely based on a story by Philip K. Dick) brought to the table issues such as artificial intelligence, genetic manipulation, climate change, or large migratory movements, which in little more than forty years are the most prominent problems on the international agenda. Another film based on a novel (science fiction practices promiscuity of narrative languages, and goes hand in hand with literature, cinema, comics, video games, etc.), like Soylent Green, posed the global food crisis and the degradation of democracy with the consequent emergence of authoritarian forms of government, as we see today. The Californian company Foundation is driving the mass production of a robot called Phantom MK-1 that – unlike other major robotics proposals known so far – is specifically designed to fight in war situations (Terminator). Major technology companies have long been researching time travel and the colonization of Mars.The lesson of all this is that everything we imagine is also real. If we can imagine it, it is already real. That is why, from Aristotle to the Surrealists, there have always been those who have defended the lucidity of dreams. Ideas that at some point were rejected, ridiculed, or directly persecuted as fantasy, delirium, or blasphemy (such as traveling to the Moon, demonstrating that the Moon orbited the Earth and that the Earth orbited the Sun, or asserting that the Earth is round and not flat) become empirical and undeniable realities thanks to the intelligence and persistent effort of a species, the human one, which does not always dedicate itself to committing atrocities.The Artemis II mission has opened the era of Moon conquest. The objective will be to inhabit the Moon, establish bases and laboratories there, work there, build there, colonize it. This means a new race between the world powers, and the need to deploy an ad hoc legislation that will be complex and that will have to be avoided (I don't know how) from being put from the start at the service of oligarchies and oligopolies. And that another science fiction prediction is not fulfilled, in this case from the film Matrix: “You humans –Agent Smith said–, you establish yourselves in a place, you consume all the resources, and when you have exhausted them, you go to another place and do the same thing again. There is only one other species that behaves this way, and that is the virus.”

The year is drawing to a close, but the astronomical calendar still has some unmissable and outstanding phenomena in store for these final days of 2025. In the coming days, we'll reach the peak of one of the most important and spectacular meteor showers of the year: the Geminids. It might even be better than the most famous meteor shower of the year, the Perseids in August. In this case, we should dress warmly, as the nights are long and cold at this time of year. Below you will find the information you need to fully enjoy this phenomenon.

The water that surrounds us—the water we drink, the water in the oceans, and even the water that makes up our bodies—is older than our planet. In fact, some of that water existed before the Sun began to shine. We often say we are stardust, but we are also cosmic water.

More than a century later, Catalonia will once again experience a total solar eclipse, a rare astronomical phenomenon that will darken the sky for just over a minute and a half. Although relatively common globally, their shadow rarely crosses the exact same area. In Catalonia, this hasn't happened since 1905. On August 12, 2026, the eclipse will be most visible in the Terres de l'Ebre and Lleida regions, and this Thursday the Catalan government announced the municipalities where the first safe viewing points will be set up. For now, there are about twenty locations.

The Northern Lights have returned to Catalonia this November. They were visible in the early hours of Wednesday morning, primarily in areas far from light pollution. All forecasts indicated that the best time to see this phenomenon would be Wednesday night into Thursday morning, but ultimately the auroras were concentrated in more northerly latitudes, where they are more common. However, in the early hours of Thursday morning, a very faint and indirect SAR aurora borealis was observed from the Prades Astronomical Park in the Baix Camp region, from where the phenomenon was monitored throughout the night and early morning. This coincided with the peak of geomagnetic activity. In any case, it was only visible with the aid of cameras, as it was not visible to the naked eye.

We'll soon be able to enjoy another supermoon: this Wednesday, November 5th, brings what's known as the Beaver Supermoon. It will be the second supermoon of the year, but the largest of the three in 2025. Specifically, it will appear up to 7.7% larger and 16% brighter than usual, according to Meteolluna. A supermoon is a phenomenon that occurs when a full moon coincides with the point in its orbit where the satellite is closest to Earth. This Wednesday, the satellite will be about 356,967 km away, making it the closest point to Earth this year. However, this will happen at 2:19 PM Catalan time, not at night, but we'll explain when it will be best seen.

Among all the meteor showers that occur throughout the year, the Perseids, more commonly known as Tears of Saint Lawrence, are the most popular. On the one hand, because they occur at a time of year when it's best to be outdoors at night to observe them. On the other hand, because it's the most frequent meteor shower, which can reach up to 200 objects per hour with speeds exceeding 50 kilometers per second.

The atypical midsummer atmosphere has been settling in our country for weeks now. But astronomical summer only officially begins this Saturday at 4:42 a.m. That's when the summer solstice occurs, giving rise to the shortest night and longest day of the year. A phenomenon that, contrary to what many people think, isn't due to Saint John's Day. The new season will last 93 days—until September 22nd—and will begin coinciding with the Saint John's Day long weekend, with soaring temperatures and a torrid peak more typical of the dog days.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter spacecraft has captured images of the Sun's south pole for the first time in history. This milestone represents a major advance in our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the Sun's cycle, and space weather. Until now, all our images of our star were from the Sun's equator, as Earth, the other planets in its orbit, and all spacecraft orbit the star in a disk called the ecliptic plane.

NASA astronomers have directly observed silicate clouds in the atmosphere of an exoplanet known as YSES-1 c for the first time. The data were collected by the James Webb Space Telescope, which also revealed the presence of silicates originating from the circumplanetary disk orbiting a second planet in the same system, YSES-1 b. The results, published this Tuesday in the journal Nature, represent a significant advance in the direct observation of the composition of the atmosphere of exoplanets, as well as the processes that take place in them.

It's been over 120 years since a total solar eclipse darkened the sky prematurely in Catalonia. next August 12, 2026 This exceptional astronomical phenomenon will be visible, especially in Terres de l'Ebre and Lleida, cloud cover permitting. Although there is still more than a year to go before day turns into night for just over a minute and a half, the Generalitat (Catalan government) is already preparing to organize the expected crush of astronomy enthusiasts in the "total visibility" zones; that is, from where the eclipse will be easiest to observe. Pending the details of these locations, the luckiest city would be Roquetes (Baix Ebre).

Astronomical tourism is one of the fastest-growing trends among travelers in recent years, according to International Dark Sky Places. This is quite an event, considering that 83% of the world's population lives under light pollution, representing 23% of the world's land surface located between 75°N and 60°S. This figure is growing at a rate of 2% per year, according to data from the Starlight Foundation. Furthermore, the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) had already shown in 2021 that light pollution had grown by around 50% in the last 25 years. Fortunately, there are still more than 200,000 km of light pollution.² of territories in more than thirty countries with skies protected and accredited by international institutions, in addition to the public request to include in the 2030 Agenda the creation of a new sustainable development goal to guarantee the quality of the night sky and access to starlight, #SDG18. A demand that planted its seed in 2007, when the World Declaration in Defense of the Night Sky and the Right to Observe the Stars, known as the La Palma or Starlight Declaration, was approved.

Lovers of the saga of Star Wars They should recall the magnificent sunsets seen from Tatooine, the home planet of protagonist Luke Skywalker, with two stars setting on the horizon. A similar scene can be seen from the planet that astronomers at the University of Birmingham have detected orbiting, for the first time, a binary system of two brown dwarf stars. However, the most remarkable aspect is that the planet's orbit follows a polar trajectory with a 90-degree inclination with respect to the plane in which the stars orbit.

The spring astronomical calendar is off to a strong start. This last weekend of March, we witnessed one of the most anticipated events of the year: a partial solar eclipse visible from Catalonia. The phenomenon began on Saturday, March 29, and the moon could be seen slightly biting the sun in some parts of the country.

Dark energy fills the entire Universe and determines its expansion rate. Now, data from more than 15 million galaxies and quasars, the DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) experiment, in which Catalonia participates heavily, reveal that this type of energy could have varied over time.

America is preparing for the great astronomical phenomenon of 2024: the total solar eclipse that on April 8 will be visible in a wide area of the continent, from Mexico to Canada, crossing the United States from the southwest to the northeast. The corridor of total darkness of the eclipse will cross cities as large as Dallas, Cleveland or Buffalo, triggering interest in the phenomenon. Multiple events are already scheduled to follow it, in stadiums such as the McLane stadium in Waco, Texas, in museums or in observatories surrounded by nature such as the one on Mont Mégantico in Quebec.

Up to 300 intermediate-mass black holes and 2,500 active black holes in dwarf galaxies. This is the double discovery of an international team of scientists through the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which could expand human understanding of the Universe and pave the way for future research into galaxy formation.

One of astronomy's most spectacular phenomena is approaching: on August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse will occur, casting Catalonia in shadow. In fact, although it will affect Europe, it will only be visible in Iceland, Spain, and a very small part of Portugal. We will all be privileged: the total eclipse will only be visible in the north of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands (the only places in Spain where the eclipse will be complete).

It's called M87* and it became famous on April 10, 2019, when a photo of it went around the world. It is a black hole that is 40 billion kilometres in diameter and has a mass equivalent to 6.5 billion suns and is at the center of a galaxy located 55 million light years from Earth. After presenting it in society two years ago with the first image captured of one of these cosmic monsters, the scientific team of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has just published a new image that contains more information and that has allowed exploration of its inside.