Children of all ages love make-and-take outreach activities, but in the age of COVID-19, this has been difficult. But there are many astronomy activities you can do at home using common materials easily bought at craft stores (or online).
An example is a scale model of the Pluto-Charon system.
Because Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, is half Pluto’s diameter, and the average distance between the two bodies is slightly more than eight Pluto diameters, two Styrofoam balls (one 4 inches wide and the other 2 inches wide) plus a three-foot wooden dowel are all that are needed to make a reasonably accurate model. White glue is optional, to help keep the balls attached after you insert one end of the dowel into each of them.
Thanks to the New Horizon’s spacecraft, we now know that both Pluto and Charon have really interesting surface features. The heart-shaped feature on Pluto is now officially called Tombaugh Regio, after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto.
Feel free to draw a heart on your Pluto with a marker.
Charon has a darkened ice cap near its north pole. While the feature does not have an official name as of yet, its unofficial working title is “Mordor Macula,” named for the home of the Dark Lord Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. You can use a marker to draw in this feature.
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