Buenaventura Suárez Astronomical Interpretation Center (Planetarium)

The Buenaventura Suárez Astronomical Interpretation Center and Planetarium is Paraguay's only planetarium and astronomical observatory. It was inaugurated on March 24, 2010, within the Jesuit Mission of San Cosme y Damián, in the south of the Itapúa department. It is named after the Jesuit priest and astronomer Buenaventura Suárez, who arrived at the reduction in 1703 and, with the help of the Guaraní people, built a telescope and wrote the "Lunario de un siglo," a work whose precision amazed European scientists. Suárez is remembered as the first astronomer of the southern hemisphere to make observations and measurements of the celestial vault.

The complex offers an educational experience blending science and Guaraní culture: a multimedia projection room on Guaraní astronomy, a gnomon for measuring solstices and equinoxes, a galactic slide, an armillary sphere, a scale model of the solar system, and solar and nighttime telescopes for daytime and nighttime sky observation. It sits in San Cosme y Damián, Itapúa, beside one of the country's best-preserved Jesuit mission complexes, making it a must-stop along the Jesuit Route.