‘Make Your Own Planet’ at Celebration Space in Cardiff

Dr Karen Meyer, Dr Aurora Sicilia-Aguilar, and Ruhee Kahar participated in the National Astronomy Meeting 2023, which took place at Cardiff University. In addition to presenting at the scientific meetings, we also contributed to the public engagement session Celebration Space in the afternoon of July 6th, bringing our ‘Make Your Own Planet’ workshop. Using our ‘protoplanetary disk’ model, visitors could create their own planet and decide whether to make it a large, hot Jupiter, a super-Earth, or maybe an Earth-twin. The planet was then launch into its orbit using our Python computer game, often showing how hard it is to have a planet that is ‘just right’ in the temperate zone that can host liquid water – and life. But, no matter how exotic your planet looks like, it is very likely similar to a know exoplanet or Solar System body, and you can find a look-alike among the NASA planet posters.