Reach for the stars at the Euro Space Center. Find out everything you need to know about space — from the origins (起源) of the universe to the future space exploration plans. Light, sound and special effects help to bring your space journey to life. Throughout your tour, our specially trained guides will answer your questions and provide you with any information you require.

    Begin your tour with our exhibition about the planets, then move on to the Space Laboratory and see some of the experiments carried out in space. Visit our international space station, where you can climb into our full-scale Space Shuttle model and experience life on board as an astronaut.

    You will know all about space by now and to help you further, our Space Center astronaut will tell you about how young people train as astronauts in our own training school. Finally, you can watch our amazing Space Show in our IMAX cinema, which will help you understand everything you have learned during your visit better.

    Outside we have an outdoor exhibition including a giant solar system, full-size rocket models and outdoor games. Don't worry if it rains — much of this is under cover.

    After that, why not visit our restaurant Resto Space for food and drink on a space theme? And don't forget our Space Shop, offering you a lot of gifts to take home.

    The Euro Space Center is open every day during school holidays, and also during other times except Mondays. Opening times are 10:00-5:00. For entrance fees, call our booking service on + 32-61-650133. Or you can email us for up-to-date entry information at info@eurospacecenter.be.

    One of the greatest contributions to the first Oxford English Dictionary was also one of its most unusual. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language. It would include every English word possible and would give not only the definition but also the history of the word and quotations (引文)showing how it was used.

    This was a huge task. So Murrary had to find volunteers from Britain, the United States, and the British colonies to search every newspaper, magazine, and book ever written in English. Hundreds of volunteers responded, including William Chester Minor. Dr. Minor was an American Surgeon who had served in the Civil War and was now living in England. He gave his address as “Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire,” 50 miles from Oxford.

    Minor joined the army of volunteers sending words and quotations to Murray. Over the next years, he became one of the staff's most valued contributors.

    But he was also a mystery. In spite of many invitations, he would always decline to visit Oxford. So in 1897， Murray finally decided to travel to Crowthorne himself. When he arrived, he found Minor locked in a book-lined cell at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally insane.

    Murray and Minor became friends, sharing their love of words. Minor continued contributing to the dictionary, sending in more than 10,000 submissions in 20 years. Murray continued to visit Minor regularly, sometimes taking walks with him around the asylum grounds.

    In 1910, Minor left Broadmoor for an asylum in his native America. Murray was at the port to wave goodbye to his remarkable friend.

    Minor died in 1920, seven years before the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. The 12 volumes defined 414,825 words, and thousands of them were contributions from a very scholarly and devoted asylum patient.

    Ever order a drink, and feel cheated on the pour? Before you trouble the waiter, take a closer look at the size of your glass. “People will generally think there being less in larger containers, than in smaller ones.” Says Theresa Marteau, a behavioral scientist at the University of Cambridge, in England.

    She and her workmates had analyzed（分析）how larger amounts—and larger plates—trick us into eating more food. And they wondered: could the same be true for alcohol?

    So the researchers convinced the employees at a local bar to run an experiment: every two weeks, for four months, they'd change the bars wine glasses from the standard 300 milliliter size, to either slightly larger—370 milliliters, or slightly smaller—250 milliliters. They saw how the size of the glass affected customers' drinking habits, even though the pour, the amount of alcoholic drinks, was unchanged.

    It turned out that serving wine in smaller glasses had no measurable effect. But the large glasses increased wine sales 10 percent-even after controlling for day of the week, temperature, holidays and so on. The reason? “When the wine, the same amount, is being served in a larger glass, people are probably thinking they've got less in there.” Which, she says, means they might drink more, believing they haven't hit their nightly limit. Or, they might just feel less satisfied with the pour, and buy another round. The study appears in the journal BMC Public Health.

    Marteau says that, if later studies confirm this effect, public health officials might consider directing a certain average glass size. “Stating clearly the largest size in which wine can be sold could be a measure to reduce the overconsumption（过度消耗）of alcohol that seems to be shown by the glass size.” Until that happens, the bar in the study now always serves its wine in the larger glasses.

    Before a new type of airplane goes into service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more important than all the others.

    The first is called the "tank test". A modem airplane must fly very high in the sky. Air must be pumped into the plane so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure (结构)of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the plane is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane inside. The pressure (压力) on a small window is like a huge foot that is trying to get out. If a small part of the plane were to fail, the plane would explode in the sky. To test the structure of the plane, the plane is lowered into a huge tank or container of water. Then it is filled with air. Vne pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is high up in the air. Finally, there is an explosion. This does not cause so much damage inside the water tank as it would anywhere else. Engineers can discover which part of the plane has broken. Then that part is made stronger.

    The most dangerous test happens when the new plane is going through test flights in the air. The test pilot must find out exactly what happens when the engines (发动机) are all shut off at once. The plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilot's job to find out how he can get control of the plane again. These two tests are examples of how planes are made safe before they ever carry passengers.

    Plants are living things. So can they feel pain? Plants don't feel pain the same way animals and people do, says Anke Steppuhn. She is a scientist at the Free University of Berlin in Germany. "What we define as pain usually has to do with a nervous system," Steppuhn explains. When you put your hand too close to a hot stove, nerve cells send a signal to your brain. Your brain decodes (解码) that signal as pain. This causes you to pull your hand away before any serious damage is done.

    Plants don't have nerves or brains, so they can't feel pain like we do. "But plants do recognize when something is hurting them," Steppuhn says. Because they are rooted to the ground, they can't escape a dangerous situation. So they need other ways of fighting back.

    The biggest threat to a plant's life is getting eaten. Some plants grow sharp little hairs. Other plants produce bad-tasting or even harmful chemicals. These force an attacker to abandon its meal. A plant called bittersweet nightshade does something even smarter, Steppuhn found. When a slug (蛞蝓) chews holes in a nightshade' s leaf, liquid begins dripping (滴) around the wound. It is almost as if the plant were bleeding. The liquid is sugary nectar (花蜜), and it happens to be a favorite food of ants. In their effort to collect the nectar, the ants swarm (蜂拥而至) all over the injured plant. They will attack anything that stands in their way. That includes the slug that damaged the plant in the first place. It's a very clever trick. Whenever a slug attacks a plant, the plant calls an army of ants to kill the slug.

    Nectar isn't the only way plants attract bodyguards. They also release certain chemicals into the air when they are being eaten. People usually can't detect these smells. But wasps (黄蜂) can. When a wasp detects this cry for help, it races to the scene of the crime. If it finds the right kind of insect chewing down on the plant, the wasp will interrupt the attacker's meal. It will do this by laying eggs inside the insect's body!

She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last forever. However, at over 500 years of age, time is catching up with the Mona____Lisa. 

The health of the famous picture, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1505, is getting worse year by year, according to the Louvre Museum where it is housed. 

"The thin, wooden panel(嵌板) on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years ago," the museum said. Visitors have noticed the changes but repairing the world's most famous painting is not easy. Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current chemical state.

 Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, and many are attracted by the mystery of her smile. "It is very interesting that when you're not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then you look at her and she stops," said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University. "It's because direct vision is excellent at picking up details, but less suitable to look at shadows. Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows."

 However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile. Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France's King Francis Ⅰ in 1519.

 In 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by a former employee, who took it out of the museum and hid it in his coat. He said he planned to return it to Italy. The painting was sent back to France two years later.

 During World War Ⅱ, the French hid the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces.

 Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa has some interesting stories to tell.