10th July was Space Day
The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture and marks the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei.
For our part, the science department at the Burton Borough School collated a full programme to share with and inspire year 9 pupils.
These activities were extended through into the evening so that the community could join us, together with a range of experts and amateurs to share in the wonder and excitement of this branch of science!
Cosmic Chemistry
From the big bang to the big crunch, this exciting show demonstrated the creation of the universe through to the evolution of its most complicated creation, us!
During the presentation we made our own comet, produced water and created a home made Aurora Borealis.
Skybolt Presentation
SKYBOLT has been designed to flight test a Starchaser rocket engine and prove the modular vehicle construction and secondly to achieve real space flight experience. At around 800mm diameter and nearly 12m tall SKYBOLT will deliver a 20kg payload to a target altitude of over 130km (83 miles).
Near Earth Objects
The threat posed to mankind by the impact of an asteroid or comet is now widely recognised as one of the most significant risks to human civilisation, yet there is no co-ordinated international effort to identify threatening Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) or to deal with them once detected.