Oh man, well, THAT was fun!
It was SPACE TIME on Wednesday! I’m hosting an online astronomy club for the Charles County Public Library. There were a bunch of bright young folks on the call, and man we had a blast. We talked about finding the Big Dipper and Polaris with our planispheres, why Polaris appears stationary in the sky (everyone got dizzy as we spun around), and then…
Tinkered around with a scale model of the solar system! You know, I can’t find anything lately, the majority of my stuff being in moving boxes. This included the accurate, but boring collection of index cards denoting that, if the Sun was the size of a 9 ball, the Earth would be a ballpoint pen dot almost 18 feet away. (Here’s a great site I use for this.) True, but…forgettable.
So I went thrift shopping. And to Walmart. And to Hobby Lobby. And to the grocery store. (Couldn’t find any moon pies.)
Mercury - the god with winged feet - was represented by a tiny pair of toddler sandals with butterflies. Venus, a barbie doll. Earth, a rock. Mars, a toy M16.
So we talked about distance, watched a video that showed the stars and planets compared, and zoomed out to the universe, and marveled at it all. They stumped me with a question of the linguistic origin of the word “star.” I did not see that one coming.
It was marvelous to discuss these topics with a young audience, and to see them lean in to think up some excellent questions. Not only was it fun, but uplifting to see how bright the next generation is. I can’t wait till next month, when we talk about what it would be like to visit the planets!