It is the astronomical event of the century in Catalonia. Although visibility has not been complete throughout the territory, Wednesday's eclipse has left spectacular images around the world. We review some of the most curious moments and the most unique scenes that the phenomenon has left.

The total solar eclipse of August 12 will be historic, in our region. It is an exceptional phenomenon that, for the vast majority of the population, is only seen once in a lifetime without having to travel halfway around the world. For a few moments, in one part of the country, day will turn into night, the landscape will adopt an unusual light, and the sky will offer a unique spectacle that has aroused fascination, questions, and legends since time immemorial.

When he was little, Aleix Roig was fascinated by observing the night sky. In the library of the Sabadell Astronomical Association, he found – and devoured – a book about how to build a telescope with simple materials. He didn't think twice: with a long drainpipe and some mirrors, he built his first window to the universe. Aleix began to study physical sciences, but he left it half-finished: "I wasn't motivated to spend my whole life in front of a computer," he says. Then he studied teaching. He worked for a few years as a primary school teacher. With his students, he often did practical astronomy exercises.Aleix didn't dislike taking classes in Catalan, Spanish, Art... In addition to science classes. All this stole his time to cultivate his hobby. Until he thought that hobby and profession could not only be compatible, but also add up.Then he began to search with his partner for the best night skies in Catalonia to set up an observatory. "One of the areas we liked the most is the Prades mountain range," explains Georgina Serven, Aleix's professional and romantic partner. "Here we are at almost 1,000 meters altitude and there are no other elevated points around. We are on a kind of plateau, which provides good image stability (seeing), day and night. Imagine you are inside a swimming pool and looking out with glasses. If the water is dirty or disturbed, you see nothing. Here, in Prades, it's as if we have clear and calm water," explains Aleix Roig, who is a Starlight auditor, of dark skies, that is, skies with no light pollution. What a beautiful job, to travel the world certifying the best night skies!Aleix and Georgina didn't have it easy to make the Muntanyes de Prades Astronomical Park a reality. Just when they were about to open it, the world stopped: the pandemic arrived. This was not the only setback: the town was illuminated with white lights, which are the ones that cause more light pollution. They managed to get the City Council to replace them with less polluting ones. The council also supported them with the proposal "Prades turns off the lights and turns on the stars". This idea of turning off the streetlights (how beautiful they are with hanging flowers!) in the Plaça Major so that it would be very dark... the mayor, of course, saw it as a dark prospect. But in the end, she decided to go ahead with it. And it was a great success. Seeing the starry sky (with telescopes) from the Plaça Major in Prades is a real privilege. "Prades turns off the lights and turns on the stars" is an activity that is still carried out from time to time.The promoters of the Muntanyes de Prades Astronomical Park have also set up a sky brightness measuring device, SQM (Sky Quality Meter), at the Tossal de la Baltasana – the highest point in the region – and at the Prades center, at the Astrocat Observatory, a meteor detection station, which studies, among other things, comet tails.Furthermore, they organize a lot of courses in astronomy, astrophotography, trips to different points on the planet to see auroras borealis or dark skies, dinners with stars – with a waiting list of three or four months–,a night photography contest, observations with telescopes and sessions in a 360° planetarium. Today I was able to get to know the sky of Prades from this modest planetarium, located in the center of the village (they also have two inflatable ones that travel around Catalonia). Right after, we headed towards a sky observation point. It's getting dark, and just as we pass by a dirt road, some little lights magically turn on on either side. As we advance, the houses disappear and we enter the darkness. At the observation point, we lie down on some loungers and enjoy a very starry sky.Finally, with Aleix we take a walk through the town, quite lively. The element stellar is the main square. It is certainly large, this arcaded square, considering the dimensions of the municipality. It shows that the market and cattle fairs were important. Of course, Prades was located at a crossroads of trade routes. Celestial elements are very present here: the fountain with four spouts – the most characteristic of the Catalan Renaissance, made of red stone, popularly known as the "grinding stone" – is a terrestrial globe. And next to the square, on Sant Martí street, which opens onto it, there is a magnificent drawing of a telescope, made by Pilarín. It is one of the main attractions of Prades, and of course, the telescope is not missing. Yes, Prades and astrotourism make an excellent tandem.10,000 visitors per yearThe set of activities at the Muntanyes de Prades Astronomical Park attracts around 10,000 visitors a year. "Of the visitors, I imagine there are quite a few foreigners, right?", I ask Aleix. "Well, not many," he replies. "Almost all are Catalans... and some Basques, who usually come for Easter and in the summer. There are also French people." When the Muntanyes de Prades Astronomical Park enters the international tourism circuit, this small town could have a crowd for a good part of the year.Prades is a charming town situated on one tip of the Baix Camp region, which has little in common with Cambrils and Reus, from the same region, and more with some from Priorat.In addition to the astronomical park and the valuable cultural heritage of the village of Prades, there are two heritage elements that I consider essential to visit: the hermitage of l'Abellera, located under a rock, and the Roca Foradada, next to a lake.

Space is a continuous symphony of melodies, even though, unfortunately, we cannot hear them from Earth. For a couple of decades, however, space telescopes have allowed us to hear for the first time the unique songs emanating from the hearts of stars, which tell us what has so far been invisible to science and human knowledge: the inner life of these celestial bodies, fundamental building blocks of galaxies and the Universe, and true factories of the materials we are made of. As astrophysicist and science communicator Carl Sagan said, "we are all stardust."

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.