Wolverhampton Students Touch the Moon
Pupils from schools across the city were able to touch the moon when rare samples of moon rock and lunar dust landed at City of Wolverhampton College.
Youngsters from Years 9 and above were invited into the college this July to get their hands on a range of lunar samples and meteorites as part of a schools’ astronomy day.
They were joined by A Level students from the college, who were able to study moon rock and soil brought back to earth by NASA’s Apollo astronauts.
The pupils also took part in a range of workshops looking at asteroids and comets and the threat they pose to Earth, the Solar System and the Moon.
Talks were given by Jay Tate, Director of Spaceguard UK and the Spaceguard Centre and David Bowdley from The Institute of Physics.
David said: “It’s great to be able to offer local schools the rare opportunity to get close to samples of moon rock that were returned on the Apollo missions.
“"How the earth and moon system formed has always been one of the biggest questions that science has tried to answer and students had the chance to see the samples that scientists brought back from the moon as part of their studies.”
Science and Technology Facilities Council Chief Executive, Professor Keith Mason, said: “It’s incredible to think, that when you hold a meteorite, you are handling something that may have travelled millions of miles to fall on the Earth. Meteorites can tell us a great deal about the places they originated from.”
He added: “It’s amazing that almost forty years after the lunar samples were collected, scientists are still not sure how the Moon formed! All this year, UK scientists will be studying the Moon to see what it is made of as part of Smart-1, Europe’s first robotic mission to the Moon.”
The lunar samples, provided by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council were collected during NASA’s manned space missions to the Moon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. During these missions the Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth 382 kilograms of lunar material. Most of this material is used by scientist to study the Moon, but NASA decided to use a small proportion of the rock and soil to develop lunar and planetary sciences educational packages.
The Council offers a free of charge, short-term loan system of the lunar samples to educational and scientific organisations within the United Kingdom.
