Starmus Festival Opens With Artemis II and Brian May

The Starmus Festival kicked off in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on Saturday night, and the opening gala delivered the kind of mashup only this event can: astronauts, a rock guitarist, a tenor, and a climate legend sharing one stage. It is the eighth edition of the Starmus Festival, and it is already the most talked-about science event of the weekend.

The headline moment was the crew of NASA's Artemis II mission receiving the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen accepted the award in person, according to Teneriffa News, which carried EFE agency coverage of the ceremony.

Earth as small as a thumb

Wiseman told the crowd that seeing Earth from the Moon, looking about as tiny as a thumb, makes a person feel the need to call for love, peace, hope and unity. He added that coming home brings a realisation: each person chooses whether to make tomorrow worse or better, and the crew urged everyone to make it better.

Hansen, who is Canadian, described the first thought that hits when you look back at our planet from lunar space. It is a simple question about what humans are even doing on that blue dot. But he did not leave the audience in despair. He said there is so much good all around us, and that humanity needs positivity and people willing to give it a voice.

Glover passed on thanks from the fourth crew member, Christina Koch, who could not travel to Tenerife. Koch is set to become acting deputy director of engineering at NASA on the first of November. Glover also praised the visionaries behind the festival and quoted a line displayed in Canada's Parliament building: where there is no vision, humanity perishes.

Brian May's surprise medal

The evening also marked the debut of the Jane Goodall Earth Medal, created to honour leadership in environmental protection and biodiversity. The first named recipient was Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican climate diplomat who once led the United Nations climate change secretariat. According to Tenerife Weekly, she worked a chimpanzee greeting into her speech as a tribute to the late primatologist, and Goodall's family presented the award.

Then came the plot twist. A second medal had been kept secret, and it went to Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, a co-founder of the festival. He looked genuinely stunned. The medal recognises roughly fifteen years of work with the Save Me Trust, the wildlife charity he started with Anne Brummer to give a voice to wild animals.

Science meets a very big concert

With Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield as master of ceremonies, the opening concert blended the festival's two obsessions. Former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman, tenor Andrea Bocelli and soprano Sarah Brightman performed with the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Symphony Orchestra. May reportedly closed the night with Bohemian Rhapsody, which is about as on-brand as it gets.

The theme this year is The Search for Truth, a pointed choice at a moment when facts are constantly under attack online. Past honourees include filmmaker Ridley Scott and physicist Brian Cox. The junior medals went to young achievers too: conservationist Aneeshwar Kunchala and roboticist Valeria Corrales.

Founder Garik Israelian, an astrophysicist, admitted that when Starmus began fifteen years ago with space-race pioneers such as Neil Armstrong and Alexei Leonov on stage, he could not have imagined humans would be back at the Moon so soon. That reflection landed hard, because Artemis II flew around the Moon for ten days last April.

What happens next

The programme runs for six days across Tenerife and La Palma. Nobel laureates, astronauts and artists will speak and perform, with the science camp in Plaza de la Candelaria on Sunday, a move to the Pyramid of Arona in the south of Tenerife, and a finale on La Palma, which is famous for its dark skies.

For a Gen Z audience raised on doomscrolling, the message from the stage was refreshingly direct: pay attention to the good, and act on it. Whether you care about space, climate or just a Queen guitarist getting an unexpected award, the Starmus Festival is a reminder that science and art work better together. Want more? Check our science coverage for the latest.