Smelling the Moon, Tickling a Meteor

Have you ever wondered what you weigh on different planets? Or what the universe smells or sounds like? Students of year 4,6 and 7 could find that out during an Astronomy Workshop organized by Patrícia Raposo and conducted by the Austrian Space Forum on Monday, 13 January.

Analog astronaut Gernot Grömer from Innsbruck and pharmaceutical engineer Willibald Stumptner from TU Graz along with their team of scientists, Daniel Valtiner, Hannes Mayer, Christoph Hemmer and Maria Haidacher (a GIBS alumni student) also brought the Mars Rover Model called Dignity to GIBS. Students were given the opportunity to maneuver it across the “surface” of Mars, trying to pick up and retrieve a small piece of a real meteor to the “homebase”.

Students could also try on replicas of space suits complete with helmets, life support system and intercom.

One of the highlights was seeing a rare TiuTerra Crystal by Swarowski made out of rock samples (from 33 countries including Antarctica and the deep sea) mixed with a piece of a Martian meteorite – a symbol of the worldwide support of space exploration.

Find out more about The Austrian Space Forum (a network of space experts collaborating with national and international institutions from science and industry) at https://oewf.org/en/.