Astronomy Days coming to Museum of Natural Sciences
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts Astronomy Days this weekend. Each year the museum partners with the Raleigh Astronomy Club and NASA to celebrate planetary science with special exhibits, talks and activities for all ages.
Posted — UpdatedDr.Green will share some of the beautiful, strange and sometimes puzzling worlds this research has revealed over the years.
Other talks include a look at missions studying the outer edges of the solar system as well as Saturn and Pluto, the events leading up to the launch of Apollo 11, and a talk on how mission planners get a spacecraft from Earth to another planet or moon. Here's a hint: gravity plays a very big role throughout the process.
I'll be talking Saturday about Mars Geology. Mars has a lot more in common with North Carolina than you might think. There will be samples of rocks and soil that the Mars rovers are encountering there as well. On Sunday I'll be talking about technologies originally developed for space applications that we enjoy everyday here on Earth.
There will be samples there as well.
Younger astronomers will enjoy meeting the animals of the constellation with museum educators and the always surprising "Funky Physics" show presented by NASA. North Carolina filmmaker Stephen van Vuuren will also share his work which puts the beauty of our solar system on display with real imagery produced by numerous NASA spacecraft turned into a large format movie bound for IMAX screens.
Visit with NASA educators and scientists in the Environmental Conference Center on the fourth floor of the Nature Research Center. Three engineers from the team that landed Curiosity on Mars will be on hand including Jody Davis who announced "Tango Delta" to the world (touchdown) ending the seven minutes of terror and signaling that the rover was safe on Mars. Mars is the focus in these NASA exhibits which include human exploration of Mars, Mars vs North Carolina geology, a make and take craft, and try your hand at landing the Mars Science Laboratory with the interactive Xbox game.
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