On Saturday 3 October 2026, from 18:00 to midnight, the Nuit de la Culture turns Esch-Belval into an open-air stage. This year's edition is called OVNI – osez vivre de nouveaux imaginaires, "dare to live new imaginaries" – a nod to the French word for UFO that turns visitors' eyes to the sky and the unknown. Few places imagine the future quite like a research lab. The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) takes part with three experiences that bring its research out of the lab and into the streets
When science meets art
What does it look like when oxygen leaves rust? Or when artificial intelligence re-reads a nebula 5,000 light-years away? When science meets art hands scientific images from LIST labs to Luxembourg-based artists and asks them to create something else.
Four visuals go on show in the public space around the Maison de l’innovation. Two are images from our research. A transmission electron micrograph from the PLASREDREGO project, carried out at ESRIC with ESA co-funding, captures iron oxide the instant after a hydrogen plasma has pulled out its oxygen – a first step towards producing oxygen from lunar soil. A mosaic from the MILAN and MILAN2 projects shows four AI-enhanced views of the Rosette Nebula, taken with a consumer smart telescope.
The other two are the artworks they inspired. Photographer Tom Faber answers the micrograph with Oxygen from the rust, where soap bubbles rise from a rust-red lunar landscape. Keven Erickson answers the nebula with Rosette Nebula, a cosmos made of ink and water, caught in light.
Discover the four works and the people behind them
AI in the sky
At the Hauts Fourneaux, visitors can see for themselves how AI transforms astronomy. Images captured by telescopes are often blurred, grainy or washed out by city lights, and cleaning them used to require complex software and a lot of patience. LIST scientist Olivier Parisot develops AI tools that do it in seconds: the noise disappears, the colours return and galaxies finally look the way we imagined them.
The work grew out of a collaboration with Vaonis, a French maker of smart telescopes, through the MILAN and MILAN2 projects. The aim is simple: make astronomy accessible to everyone, no expertise required.
Read more about what to expect [in French]
A piece of the Moon in Belval
Visitors can also discover a model of the Dusty Thermal Vacuum Chamber (DTVC), the scientific heart of the first building of Luxembourg’s future Space Campus in Belval, whose construction started in late 2025. Commissioned by the European Space Agency and operated by ESRIC within LIST, it will be Europe’s largest dusty thermal vacuum chamber. It will reach vacuum levels of 10−6 mbar and temperatures from –180 °C to +160 °C, and use engineered lunar regolith to reproduce Moon dust. No other facility in Europe combines all three.
Read more about the Space Campus
Practical information
- Date: Saturday 3 October 2026, 18:00–00:00
- Where: Esch-Belval.
- When science meets art: Belval close to Maison de l'Innovation
- AI in the sky: Hauts Fourneaux.
- DTVC model: Halle des poches à fonte
- Entry: free
- Full programme:nuitdelaculture.lu
Our thanks to the City of Esch-sur-Alzette and frEsch for organizing the Nuit de la Culture and letting science out into the streets.