NASA Invites Children to Learn About Hubble Space Telescope

Two boys raise their hands at a “Science on a Sphere” presentation at the Goddard Visitor Center on Sunday, March 16, 2014. Image Credit: NASA Goddard / Bill Hrybyk

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will host a Sunday Experiment on Oct. 18, 2015, from 1 to 3 p.m. EDT. The event is free and open to the public with a focus on school-aged children and their families.

This month’s Sunday Experiment features activities to help people learn about the Hubble Space Telescope, which is celebrating 25 years in orbit this year.

Goddard’s Dr. Kenneth Carpenter, Hubble’s Operations Project Scientist, will deliver identical 30-minute presentations – followed by 10-minute Q&A sessions – on the history and science of Hubble at 1:15 and 2:15 p.m. EDT.

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Volunteers will provide hands-on activities that include exploring the tools used by astronauts to repair and upgrade the spacecraft, a spacewalk choreography exercise that teaches the challenges of spacewalks.

The event will provide a chance to explore how astronomers examine light from celestial targets to understand the chemical composition and physical conditions in those objects, and an experiment to understand ultraviolet light that is bluer than what the human eye can see, but that can be seen by telescopes above Earth’s atmosphere.

On April 24, 2015, NASA marked the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch. Since its launch, according to NASA, Hubble has allowed astronomers to observe the universe in stunning clarity, revealed properties of space and time, and shed light on many of the great mysteries of the universe making conjectures certainties.