Collaboration with the Musée Jules Verne

In collaboration with the Musée Jules Verne, in the city of Nantes (France), the CNRS lab IP2I is participating in the organisation of an exhibition that will be held in France during the summer of 2023. The exhibition will trace the birth and progress of the ‘Lidenbrock’ project: a muography examination of the inner part of the Snaefellsjőkull glacier volcano, which is famous for being the scene of the science-fiction novel, ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’, by Jules Verne. Professor Otto Lidenbrock is, of course, one of the central characters in the story, as the eccentric scientist who believes volcanic tubes lead directly to the centre of the Earth, and the project will display pictures, videos, and a live demonstration of cosmic-muon detections, using a real tracker.

The global art-science aspect of the exhibition is obviously linked to Jules Verne and the birth of modern science, with special emphasis on volcanology. It focuses on the new ‘vision’, that becomes available as a result of the use of innovative observational means. Within this art and science project, REINFORCE researchers went to the Snaefellsjőkull glacier volcano to collect data for a planned future workflow in the Cosmic Muon Images demonstrator project. The chance to place muography in such a well-known and easily identifiable context offered an excellent opportunity to take REINFORCE activities to a wider audience.