Moon Rocks land in Brixham!

At the beginning of June, a class of year 3 pupils was allowed to handle important specimens from outer space, as rare samples of moon rocks and lunar dust arrived for a flying visit to Eden Park Primary School, Brixham!

Amidst tight security, the very special stellar examples were brought to the school and unlocked from their metal case for Dolphin Class to examine more closely. These lunar samples were originally collected during NASA's manned space missions to the moon in the late 1960s and early 70s, making them extremely precious and irreplaceable. During their missions, Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth 382 kg of lunar material, most of which is now used by scientists to study the moon, but NASA decided to use a small proportion of the rocks and soil to develop lunar and planetary science educational packages.

The UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council loaned the samples to class teacher Miss Tully for one week, and the package they sent also included meteorites.

Science and Technology Facilities Chief Executive, Professor Keith Mason said, “It's incredible to think that almost forty years after the lunar samples were collected, scientists are still not sure how the Moon formed!”

Indeed, pupils were extremely impressed at being able to hold ‘bits of the moon' and thought it incredible that when you hold a meteorite, ‘you are handling something that may have travelled millions of miles to fall on the earth.' Jordan, pictured here with Jacob, Natalie, and Samuel said, “It's amazing to see rocks that have come all the way from the moon.”

Miss Tully explained that by bringing these pieces of history into the classroom, the whole experience had proved to be an exciting contribution to their rocks and soils science project.