Year 7 were the lucky first group to visit the Space Dome this year. Crawling in through the sealed-off tunnel into the darkness, it is always surprising when the Tardis-like dome suddenly opens up into a mini planetarium, capable of showing the heavens in all their glory.

The children were taken on a tour through the planets of our solar system, exploring the unique aspects of each one, and even some of the lesser known dwarf planets. Did you know that scientists believe it actually rains diamonds on both Neptune and Uranus – but at several hundred miles per hour!

We were intrigued to see the particularly clear images from Mars, showing us evidence of what appear to be ancient stream-beds where it seems water may once have flowed. Similarly, Jupiter’s moon, Europa, discovered by Galileo in 1610 using a telescope of his own design, is believed to house liquid water beneath its thick crust. Scientists at Nasa are currently trying to capture and analyse what they believe are water bursts from Europa in the hope we can locate another supply of the precious liquid that is essential to all life as we know it.

Charlotte B and Alice L describe the experience for us:

'Our space dome experience was incredible, and we learnt a lot from it. It was so cool to see images of space projected above us and when the stars were on the top of the dome it felt like we really were really looking into space. During lockdown we learnt about space and did our own space project. But this helped us understand how everything was in comparison to how big the universe is. We learnt many cool new facts today like how the sun would explode in five million years and seeing the constellations and how they were used to guide the way a long time ago. It's interesting to see how imaginative the Greeks were and how they made stories using the stars that we still have today. Thank you for coming and showing us this, as we will never forget it because it is such a rare experience and we really enjoyed it.'

Having whizzed through our planetary system in a morning, it was an informed and inspired bunch of cosmologists who emerged, blinking, back out into the bright lights of the Sports Hall!