TTS Students Touch the Moon

Rare samples of moon rock and lunar dust landed at Thomas Telford School for a week’s visit. Meteorites of different kinds also formed part of the display and students were able to handle and study them, seeing the obvious differences in the materials they are made from.

The lunar samples, provided by the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council were collected during NASA’s manned space missions to the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During these missions, the Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth 382 kilograms of lunar material. Most of this material is used by scientists to study the Moon but NASA decided to use a small proportion of the rock and soil to develop lunar and planetary sciences educational packages.

Science Teacher at Thomas Telford School, Mr Dan Aughton said: “Seeing and handling materials from space has been a thrilling, once in a lifetime experience for the students and the Science teachers too. Over the week practically all the students had an opportunity to study the samples and rocks.”

Science and Technology Facilities Council Chief Executive, Professor Keith Mason said “It’s incredible to think, that when you hold a meteorite, you are handling something that may have travelled millions of miles to fall on the Earth. Meteorites can tell us a great deal about the places they originated from.”

He added “It’s amazing that almost forty years after the lunar samples were collected, scientists are still not sure how the Moon formed! All this year, UK scientists will be studying the Moon to see what it is made of as part of Smart-1, Europe’s first robotic mission to the Moon.”

Photo: Danvir Randhawa (17 from Wolverhampton), Aidan Reynolds (16 from Randlay, Telford) and Jordan Mason (17 from Wolverhampton) study the lunar samples.