1 December 2012

Astronomers from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queens University Belfast continued their successful collaboration with the W5 Discovery Centre with an afternoon of activities for Key Stage 3 pupils on November 23rd. Cosimo Inserra, Heather Cegla and Morgan Fraser spoke to around 150 GCSE students about life as an astronomer, the telescopes and satellites which they use and the research they undertake. After an intensive question and answer session, which covered topics from the Big Bang to the eventual fate of our Solar System, the students got a chance to put their scientific knowledge into practice. Inspired by the recent landing of the NASA Curiosity probe on Mars, the students had to design and build a landing system from common household items, which would allow an egg to survive a drop from the balcony of the W5 mezzanine.