Deadly Moons 2025
Recently, I was pleased to offer a drawing workshop to a summer camp in Westport. My updated version, Deadly Moons 2025, seemed perfect. The group was of mixed ages, ranging from five to eleven. I trimmed the presentation down to seven moons. And yes, I included Europa so that I could inform them about the ongoing Europa Clipper mission.
Buzz Aldrin
For fun, I brought along my life-size Buzz Aldrin. This free-standing cardboard cutout is very realistic. When I first got it, I kept thinking there was another human in the room with me. Good peripheral vision can be spooky sometimes. Buzz was new news to some of the group; however, one child could name Neil Armstrong as the first person to walk on the moon. They were all interested in the fact that Neil is reflected in Buzz Aldrin’s visor. One of the reasons Buzz accompanied me was that I wanted to link the first Apollo moon landing with the upcoming Artemis mission. Artemis was also news to them. Let’s hope the mission proceeds and Artemis 2 launches in the spring of 2026.
Stinky Moons
We took a look at my moon selection, which includes our Moon, Enceladus, Titan, Europa, Mimas, Phobos, and Io. There were many great questions during and after the session. A few of the children had seen our moon through my telescope, as they are Scouts and Beavers in Louisburgh. The children loved Titan, with its smelly, improbable rivers, lakes, and oceans. They loved Io with its sulfur-laden volcanoes. They had a thing about stinky moons. Mimas was, of course, popular because it looks like the Death Star. Deadly Moons 2025 was colourful and fun.
Europa and Ireland
Europa didn’t get a look in; however, they did know the Irish word for line is “líne” with a fada on the i. The Irish word for line is pronounced the same as the Latin word “linea”. Europa is crisscrossed with lines made of ice that are reddish. Therefore, they are not pure ice; they have other materials mixed into them. These cracks formed on the surface of this icy moon and created unusual patterns all over it. There is even an area called Conamara Chaos on the surface of Europa. Connemara borders Co. Mayo (Ireland) and has many tiny roads winding through its landscape. This may look chaotic, but not to the people who live there.
To conclude, we watched the short NASA video, “We Are Going.” I explained that the mission had been delayed, so to ignore the 2024 date. Gateway, the moon orbiting station, is in doubt; hence, I didn’t mention it, as I hope it will become a reality.
All the kids received NASA moon cards, as I have a few left over from the box that arrived for me some years ago from the former NASA Cassini Outreach specialist, Jane Houston Jones. After all their hard work and fun, I let them take my big Earth Ball outside to play with for a while.
I loved it, and everyone was happy. A little more about my workshop Deadly Moons
