It wasn’t just people on Earth who were glued to the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics – astronauts on the ISS were inspired by the athletes, too! They added elements of Olympic sports to their training programmes (and it looks like they had a lot of fun doing it, too!)
Watch the astronauts who were inspired by the Olympics here!
Read more fascinating science stories like this one in every edition of Whizz Pop Bang – find out how to subscribe here!
Carl Sagan was an astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, professor and science communicator who was fascinated by extra-terrestrial life. You can read about him in Whizz Pop Bang 98: Aliens!
Carl was involved in American space exploration since it began in the 1950s. He put together messages that were sent into outer space in the 1970s on the Voyager Golden Record.
Read more about space in these out-of-this-world issues of Whizz Pop Bang!
Copies of the Golden Record were carried by Voyager I and Voyager II. They contained:
The discs contained diagrams that explain where Earth is and how to play the record. Scientists spent a long time working out how to communicate these messages to aliens!
Here are some examples of things that were included on Carl Sagan’s Golden Record. You can find a full list of everything that was included here.
We can’t include the photographs and diagrams included on the Golden Record because of copyright but you can see some of them here. These show some of the same subjects that featured on it.
If you want to find out more about fantastic scientists like Carl Sagan, subscribe to Whizz Pop Bang, the awesomely amazing science magazine for kids! Learn about inspirational scientists of the past and present every issue – our readers are the in credible scientists of the future!
Team Whizz Pop Bang spent a wild weekend meeting hundreds of scientists-in-training at Just So Festival 2023. Thank you so much to Just So Festival for having us back again – we absolutely love being a part of this incredible event.
This year, we brought Jonathan Scott from the European Space Agency (ESA) along to share his amazing knowledge of staying fit and healthy in space. Jon works in the Space Medicine Team at ESA and he used his expert skills to run an Astronaut Training Camp.
Jon brought a replica space suit along for Whizz Pop Bang fans to try on!
We were overwhelmed with the turn out for Jon’s talk and it was fantastic to see so many budding astronauts! A HUGE thank you to Jon, and to all of you who came and joined in the fun. We hope you picked up a thing or two about how astronauts stay fit and healthy on board the International Space Station.
We also ran The Whizz Pop Bang Discovery Den, where young scientists could explore their five senses in some super-fun hands-on experiments.
Children were invited to visit us in ‘The Future’ area in the woodland at Just So Festival and try five different activities linked to the senses.
They learned some amazing facts, including:
We hope to see lots of you at Just So Festival in future!
We want to inspire the future generation of scientists with our monthly magazine! That’s why, every month we interview inspirational scientists about their jobs so children across the globe can learn about fascinating areas of science and what it takes to do these jobs.
We interviewed astronaut Tim Peake and wanted to share it here for free so that everyone can be inspired by Tim’s story. This pack also includes a reading comprehension question and answer sheet for schools and home educators to teach kids.
This interview delves into what it is really like to travel in space. Tim Peake describes what it feels like to take off in a rocket and to feel weightless, as well as his scariest moments. A must-read for your aspiring astronauts.
This downloadable reading pack includes:
– An interview with Tim Peake for you to print or for your child to read on a tablet.
– Reading comprehension question sheet and answer sheet.
Our teaching resources are designed for children from 6 to 12, but this reading comprehension is particularly perfect for year 5, P6 (Scotland) and 9-year-olds and 10-year-olds as it ties in with the National Curriculum topic about earth and space they will be taught this during this school year.
Did your mini-scientist enjoy learning about Tim Peake? Why not discover our other space themed issues of Whizz Pop Bang in our shop here! Or click on one of the magazines below for some of our favourite space issues!
Fill your child with science wonder with a subscription to Whizz Pop Bang, the award-winning magazine for 6 to 12-year-olds. Watch their face light up with glee when their very own magazine zooms through the letterbox! Packed full of hands-on science awesomeness, it’s the gift that keeps of delighting, month after month.
Watch NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield control the International Space Station’s robotic arm that grabs cargo.
Find out more about what it’s like to live in space in Whizz Pop Bang: OUT OF THIS WORLD.
Fill your child with science wonder with a subscription to Whizz Pop Bang, the award-winning magazine for 6 to 12-year-olds. Watch their face light up with glee when their very own magazine zooms through the letterbox! Packed full of hands-on science awesomeness, it’s the gift that keeps of delighting, month after month.
While in space, astronauts lose the ability to balance. When they return to Earth, this makes turning corners, climbing stairs and even walking in a straight line very difficult until their balance comes back! Watch NASA astronaut Scott Kelly learn how to balance again.
Find out more about what it’s like to live in space in Whizz Pop Bang: OUT OF THIS WORLD.
Fill your child with science wonder with a subscription to Whizz Pop Bang, the award-winning magazine for 6 to 12-year-olds. Watch their face light up with glee when their very own magazine zooms through the letterbox! Packed full of hands-on science awesomeness, it’s the gift that keeps of delighting, month after month.
Astronaut Tim Peake travelled to the International Space Station in 2015 and spent 186 days orbiting the Earth and has shared some tales from this epic adventure with Whizz Pop Bang magazine in this brilliant blog post: Tim Peake spills the beans on life in space!
He’s also just published his first children’s book, along with bestselling author Steve Cole, based on space-age science and technology: Swarm Rising. We’ve got SIX COPIES to give away!
When Danny is kidnapped by Adi – who can run through brick walls and make cars drive on water – he realises that all humans are in danger. Adi is part of a super-advanced hive mind, the Swarm, which intends to protect the Earth from the environmental catastrophe caused by the human race.
Adi – Alien Digital Intelligence in the form of a girl – can bend the laws of physics and control digital data, but as a digital being she wants to know what it’s like to be human. Which is where Danny comes in.
But what exactly is the ‘help’ the secretive Swarm is offering? Can Danny and his friend Jamila help Adi stop the Swarm Agents and give humanity a second chance?
Swarm Rising by Tim Peake & Steve Cole is available now.
To win one of SIX copies, answer this question in the comments:
What does ESA stand for?
A Egyptian Space Association
B Earth Seen Above
C European Space Agency
This competition closes at midnight on 31st October 2021. For full terms and conditions visit whizzpopbang.com/terms-and-conditions
Tim Peake spent 186 days on the International Space Station between 15 December 2015 and 18 June 2016 and has shared some of his amazing experiences with Whizz Pop Bang magazine. He’s also just published his first children’s book, along with bestselling author Steve Cole, based on space-age science and technology: Swarm Rising. Find out how you could win a copy here!
“I had so many feelings! On the one hand, there was a huge amount of excitement and adrenaline. The trip was a culmination of years of work and effort, so I was really looking forward to it. I was a little bit apprehensive as well – obviously there’s a rocket launch to go through, and then all eyes are on you. The eyes of the agency, the eyes of your crew mates, the eyes of the nation watching! There are times when you just have to step up to the plate and perform.
Catching a visiting cargo vehicle is a one-person job: it is your responsibility to connect an entire space station to an entire cargo vehicle, and nobody else can help with that. These tasks are very, very high-pressure!
I felt that pressure – as sports people do when they have to perform – when I went out on the space walk. So I was definitely apprehensive, but the majority of my feelings were excitement and adrenaline. Being up there on the space station is such a privilege and everyone supports you to try and be the best that you can be.”
“I just loved looking down at Kamchatka on the east coast of Russia, for example, and seeing a volcano smoking away. I’d think, ‘Nobody but me knows that volcano is erupting,’ because there literally are no humans within 2000 square miles of that location. It’s just wonderful that you can visualise the entire planet having been around it about 3000 times.
There’s nowhere on Earth that I don’t know now. Although clearly, I haven’t visited every country, I’ve got a different perspective of the planet.
It’s very serene in space. It’s a beautiful environment to be in; weightlessness, to be floating, to be looking down, just gracefully passing over the Earth without any noise, no vibration. It’s a beautiful, beautiful feeling.”
“Absolutely! The funny thing about looking out away from Earth is that in the daytime, you just see the blackness of space. It’s a very strange black – the blackest black you’ll ever see. Here on Earth we never really see black like this, because there’s always ambient light around.
In space – wow! You feel like you’re falling into the void when you look out at the blackness of space. And of course, there are no stars because the Sun is so bright that it blinds out the light of the other stars. You can only see this black abyss.
At night, when we are in the Earth’s shadow, all the stars come out. It’s beautiful to look the other direction: you can see 100 billion stars making up the Milky Way with no light pollution. The interesting thing is, you can’t see other satellites which you can see clearly from Earth – I look up at the night sky here, and I’m always seeing satellites going overhead. But in space, because we’re travelling so fast, it’s very, very hard to see another satellite that’s also travelling very fast with the naked eye. So we don’t see lights coming towards us in space.”
“Sleeping in weightlessness is lovely once you get used to it. It’s a bit tough to begin with, because your body doesn’t know to go to sleep. Here on Earth, every day of our lives we lie down at bedtime, rest our heads on pillows, and these actions are such strong triggers to make us fall asleep. When you don’t have those triggers, you float around all day, you float into your crew quarter, you zip up a sleeping bag, you can switch off the lights, you can put in some earplugs in but your body says, ‘What now?’ Once you get used to it and your body can fall asleep, wow, it’s a lovely sleep. There are no pressure points, no tossing and turning, no restlessness and you wake up completely relaxed.
We only need six hours’ sleep maximum on the space station because the quality of sleep is so good.
I used to like to strap my sleeping bag loosely using tie wraps, just enough to allow me to float around a little bit – not so much that I’d bang my head on the roof, but enough to enjoy that floating experience.”
“You get very unpopular with your crew mates if you open a packet of crisps or something like that!
Crumbs go everywhere, even in people’s eyes, all week long – so we try and avoid that.
I had bags of pistachio nuts, already shelled, but they were a treat that were sent up in care packages every now and again. You just had to be careful about how you eat that kind of thing. But yes, you don’t really want to have crumbs in the space station!”
For fans of Alex Rider, Young Bond and Cherub, this exciting action-adventure is the first children’s book from astronaut Tim Peake and bestselling author Steve Cole, and is based on space-age science and technology.
When Danny is kidnapped by Adi – who can run through brick walls and make cars drive on water – he realises that all humans are in danger. Adi is part of a super-advanced hive mind, the Swarm, which intends to protect the Earth from the environmental catastrophe caused by the human race.
Adi – Alien Digital Intelligence in the form of a girl – can bend the laws of physics and control digital data, but as a digital being she wants to know what it’s like to be human. Which is where Danny comes in.
But what exactly is the ‘help’ the secretive Swarm is offering? Can Danny and his friend Jamila help Adi stop the Swarm Agents and give humanity a second chance?
Swarm Rising by Tim Peake & Steve Cole is available now.
If you want to find out more about Space, check out these issues in our shop!
Whizz Pop Bang 67: Mission to Mars
Whizz Pop Bang 62: Over the Moon
Whizz Pop Bang 48: Hello Sunshine
Whizz Pop Bang 39 Space Travel
Whizz Pop Bang 28: Planetary Adventures
Whizz Pop Bang 7: The Science of Attraction
Whizz Pop Bang 1: Zoom to the Moon
Listen to Britain’s first ever astronaut, Helen Sharman, talking about dreaming in and about space!
This video animation, What do astronauts dream of?, was made by the Royal Institution as part of a fantastic series called A Place Called Space.
The RI say: “In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton in space; in this animation she shares a dream she has about returning to space, and talks about what it’s like to gaze down on the earth from above.”
Find out more about the science of sleep in SWEET DREAMS – it’s in our shop now!
Did you know that you’ll spend up to a third of your life happily dozing? It sounds pretty relaxing, but actually, sleep isn’t as uneventful as you might imagine. Inside this dreamy edition of Whizz Pop Bang, you’ll find out what goes on inside your sleeping brain, discover ten animals with weird and wonderful ways to sleep and learn all about snoring. You can also build a hibernation station for sleepy wildlife, race around the clock in a pull-out board game and experience the chilling body temperature of a hibernating hamster!
Meet a turtle expert who tells us how these hibernating reptiles breathe through their bottoms, create your own sleep diary, snuggle up with hibernating bears, find out how sleep scientist Eugene Aserinsky discovered some dreamy sleep secrets and reduce Halloween waste by making an upcycled bat garland.
That’s a lot to pack in before bedtime!
Whizz Pop Bang is a top-quality, gender-neutral, advert-free science magazine for families everywhere. Each issue is packed with experiments, activities, amazing facts, puzzles, jokes, riddles and more. Find out more here!
The Cheltenham Science Festival @ Home runs from 2-7 June and you can watch it all online!
Have you read about AIDA, the world’s first AI festival curator, in Whizz Pop Bang: Playground Science? Here’s where you can watch the live talks:
https://www.youtube.com/user/cheltenhamfestivals
Find out about the entire programme, including links to events being held on other platforms, here:
https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science-home/whats-on/grid
Read on for our highlights of the festival!
Whizz Pop Bang: Playground Science is available here for just £4.75!
“Stefan Gates‘ Wonka-esque, snack-based science show is packed with the chemistry of sweets, the engineering of chocolate fountains, the biology of flatulence and the quantum mechanics of glowing spaghetti. Loads of demos you can try at home, plus a few you really can’t!”
“Why is grass green? And why do butterfly wings shimmer different colours? Join mathematician Katie Steckles, chemist Jamie Gallagher and biophysicist Nate Adams as they explore what colour means to them and how colours can even help us understand the universe.”
“Join space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock on an epic adventure through the Solar System. Visit the most magnificent sights and discover all the spectacles that outer space has to offer, from planets and moons to asteroids, comets and satellites. Hold on to your helmet and get set for a cosmic roller coaster ride.”
“Join Nate Adams for an extravaganza of fiery, colourful and explosive science demonstrations. Featuring original electropop with incredible visuals from the Sound of Science band. Explore what the universe is made of, why you stick to the ground and how you can eat light!”
“Many beautiful designs and patterns are based on underlying mathematical principles of shape and symmetry. Using a ruler and compass, shapes can be constructed on paper which can form the basis of geometric patterns. In this workshop mathematician Katie Steckles and illustrator Hana Ayoob will talk you through the process and give you time – and inspiration – to design your own artwork, incorporating design ideas from traditional mandala shapes and patterns.”
