Spaceflight to the Moon at the Ghana Planetarium

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Apr 21

2013

by Sarah Abotsi-Masters

Saturday 13th April saw the second event celebrating Global Astronomy Month 2013 at the Ghana Planetarium, and a good time was had by all! The theme was Astronauts, Spaceflight and teh Moon to coincide (well, almost!) with Yuri’s Night on 12th April.

We learned about the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, but how high up does space begin anyway? There was a group activity to discuss and show “How High” various objects can be found eg commercial airliners, meteors, the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope etc. (from the GRAIL MoonKAM website).

Hands-on activities followed including painting, making a module of the Apollo command module (complete with parachute), making a “hoop glider” and a Yuri hand puppet!

After watching a short video about Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, visitors then enjoyed a Planetarium show exploring the life of an astronaut.

The sky was a little hazy but we still managed to get decent views of the moon and Jupiter. Around 40 people attended the event.

How High Is It activity:
https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/resources/activities/how_high_is_it

Yuri hand puppet:
http://yurisnight.net/resources/activities/