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Images have always been at the core of the scientific research. Thanks to computer processing and new visualization tools, they have acquired movement, volume and new resolutions, from the smallest atomic scale to cosmic dimensions. This film tries to give meaning to these 21 images and offers the keys to decode them.

In the Pyrénées Orientales region, the old solar power station Thémis used a heliostat field made out of 200 mirrors, each 50 square meters in size. Astrophysicists were able to reuse these mirrors to observe cosmic gamma rays, the most high-energy particles in the universe. These rays emit luminous flashes which are collected by the mirrors and directed toward the CELESTE detector. In this way researchers hope to be able to reach a better understanding of the mechanisms of energy production at…

Does the universe have frontiers ? Is it finite or infinite ? Two French astrophysicists, Marc Lachièze-Ray and Jean-Pierre Luminet, try to resolve this enigma and present their theory. Light, which propagate through the universe, enabled us to visualize the properties of space and the scientists already know cosmic optical illusions, which, for instance give birth to ghost images of galaxies. If space has a folded-in topology, light can go round through space several times et give ghost…

In 1995 a planet was discovered outside the solar system by Michel Mayor, an astronomer at the Geneva Observatory. At the Haute Provence Observatory Michel Mayor describes his work methods. Fluctuations in the speed of the stars, measured by spectrography, led to the proof of the existence of a giant gaseous planet in the orbit of the star 51 Pegasi. Astronomers continue to scrutinize the universe, searching the spectral rays for the chemical elements associated with life.

Report shot in Vietnam at the occasion of the solar eclipse which took place on the 24th October 1995. A short version of this film (26 ' ) can be found on our catalogue.