Intergalactic fun at MOTAT these holidays
In a science-packed cosmic encounter that’s out of this world, MOTAT takes a closer look at modern-day space exploration
when it launches its latest holiday experience from 8 to 23 July.
During the winter holidays, visitors to the Museum can experience being a rocket scientist for a day in Starbound - Mission: Solar and discover the secrets of the Sun in the newly opened exhibition, Sunlight – Ihi Kōmaru. Here they will consider the thrills and challenges of space exploration and figure out how technology could help
humans colonise this vast frontier. Putting their creative skills to work, youngsters will also get to build and launch
their very own air-powered rocket.
MOTAT’s Public Programmes Manager Sarah Somerville says the Museum is keen to encourage deeper thinking and conversation
about what space might look like. “Could mankind be building skyscrapers and motorways on another planet one day? The
possibilities are endless and we want to inspire our future innovators to explore the options and let their imaginations
run wild,” she says.
Participants in Starbound - Mission: Solar will also learn more about the “Goldilocks Zone”; the area of space where a planet is just the right distance from its
home star so that its surface is neither too hot nor too cold to support life. Could there be other habitable planets
out there like our own Earth? Investigate this question and many others in MOTAT’s hands-on solar system activity area.
Then it’s time for a galactic journey beginning with the gas and dust of the Sun’s formation in Sunlight – Ihi Kōmaru. In this award-winning exhibition visitors take on the role of a photon as it travels through space and can test their
speed against a beam of light by racing to the Moon. Discover how light is created, see how mankind harnesses the Sun’s
power in everyday devices and explore what the Sun sounds like by climbing inside an inflatable replica of a star to
find out.
Aglow with a galaxy of exciting science, Sunlight - Ihi Kōmaru and Starbound – Mission: Solar will keep the whole family entertained these school holidays while helping them understand the forces that sustain life
on Earth – and indeed drive the entire universe.
ENDS