On July 5, the NAOJ Chile Observatory held a lecture to celebrate Tanabata Festival with 37 students at the Santiago Japanese School. Tanabata is a Japanese star festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival to celebrate the meeting of the deities Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). NAOJ held the first Tanabata lecture last year, and this is the second one given by Tetsuo Hasegawa, Director of the NAOJ Chile Observatory. The topics of the lecture were: the birth and death of the Sun and stars; the formation process of the galaxies and the universe; and the progress of the ALMA early science operations that started from last year. After the lecture, Hasegawa gave explanations to the questions asked by the students who attended the event last year.

The gate of the lecture hall was decorated with bamboo branches, and the children waiting for the lecture were filled with eager curiosity. They gave a cheerful greeting to the speaker and listened to the lecture very attentively and asked many questions very actively. It was a very cold day but their excitement and fervor drove away our cold. We hope we would have more opportunities to interact with children beyond this Tanabata lecture. [Written and photographed by Takahiro Yamaguchi (NAOJ)]

These are some of the messages sent from the students to the lecturer. Positive feedback and many questions are written on them.