February 07th, 2020

Last week, we asked children to create a planet from their imagination and think about all the things that may be living there. Elle made a planet of bunnies with cotton candy trees. Lou Lou made a princess planet where the dust doesn’t make you sneeze. Grace made a family of planets with faces, and a door that could bring you to any planet you wanted. These ideas showcase the children’s interests, and seem to serve as self portraits. After today's guest, we hope the children will continue to imagine what may be living out in space.

​Paul Horowitz (Lisa’s father in law), a physicist searching for aliens in outer space! He showed us pictures of a meteorite that is filled with organic matter, leaving clues for life on other planets. The children had many questions, even more ideas, and were fascinated by ideas about meteors colliding with earth, the evolution of aliens, how we could communicate with them.

Paul: Another problem with getting this message is that it wont be English, it wont be Spanish, it wont be any language you’ve ever heard.
Sally: It will go, “gllghaagholak”
Joslin: Cause it’s an alien! Aliens don’t speak people language!
Lou Lou: We can talk alien.
Sally: Could it be  French?
Joslin: That’s why before you go into space, you get ready to learn different languages so you don’t have to learn them in space.
Paul: You're right, it would be nice to learn their language, but we don’t have any language teachers here that can teach us the alien language.
Sally: I can.  (Continued alien sounds)
Paul: Yes, your Alien is very good.

Paul and Lisa's husband built this charming theremin many years ago and donated it to the Tucker room for our space explorations. It sounds like ghost aliens, confuses everyone who hears it, and will likely be featured in our Pluto movie.