Space Fair 2010 - Melaka Planetarium, Malaysia

Debbie and I with some of our new friends!

Opening day at Melaka Planetarium!!! There were hundreds and hundreds of people from all over Malaysia who came to see us today. Some of the school groups took over3 hours to get here. They must really love science.Today I got to learn about how big the solar system really is. The students working with us set up a giant balloon, complete with sunspots, to represent the Sun. The Earth was a23 mm marble. They had all the other planets there, the moon, the asteroids, even a model of the Kuiper Belt objects and Pluto.

I love their faces - this is what interest looks like!

Visitors had to figure out which Earth ball was the right size for the balloon Sun. Then they got to figure out how far away the tiny Earth marble should be placed from the balloon Sun. It was 270 meters – almost 3 football fields away! It made me feel like Earth was very small and fragile. They also had a map that showed where in the city the other planets would be in our model. The farthest one, Neptune, was WAY outside the city. That was hard enough to understand. Then they showed us a 360 mm (14”) ball,and said it was the scaled size of the nearest star. I asked how far away the nearest star would be from the Sun, on our scale. You won’t believe this – it would be 72,000km(40,000 miles) away!

The kids are learning about spectroscopes and about me!

Part of my local team! They are great!

And as you can see, it's hands-on science teaching!

Here the kids are learning about the scale sizes! They loved it.

Some of my new Malaysian friends! Thank you for your hospitality and interest!