Celebrate Space This Month at The Bishop

February 12, 2021 – Bradenton

On Feb. 18, NASA’s space rover Perseverance is scheduled to touch down on Mars, seeking signs of ancient life as it explores Jezero Crater.

The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature is celebrating this historic mission all week long.

Starting around 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18, guests can watch the NASA livestream of the Mars landing in our West Hall.
Then join us from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20 for Mission: Mars at the Museum.

Visitors can enjoy space- and engineering-related games like an outdoor obstacle course around the solar system; a flight experiment with paper helicopters; “Shores of Jezero,” a limited-run show in The Planetarium at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.; viewing the sun safely through a solar telescope and more! Guests can even have their photo taken standing next to an augmented reality projection of Perseverance!

The day’s special activities are included in the price of admission.
“The Perseverance mission is really exciting,” said Howard Hochhalter, a NASA Solar System Ambassador and Manager of The Planetarium at The Bishop. “The rover carries the most sophisticated technology we have used yet to look for evidence of life on another planet. And if the flight experiment with the Ingenuity helicopter is successful, it will be the first time that powered, controlled flight has been attempted on another planet.”

Perseverance will be exploring the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater, which was once at the end of a large watershed that included a delta that looks remarkably like a river delta on Earth. Mission scientists chose this site because the lake that once filled Jezero Crater might have been home to microbial life billions of years ago.

For more information visit https://bishopscience.org/