Stuck at home? Visit Mars with your kids

When you’re stuck at home, Mars seems like a million miles away. Actually, it’s about 140 million miles.

What will it take to get there, and what happens to our bodies on the way?

Enter Life On (the way to) Mars, a live, weekly STEM-chat for students led by real-life space scientists from the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine. The 30-minute interactive and bite-sized talks will introduce the coolest ideas in space health for kids: What's it like to live in outer space? How long will it take to get to Mars? What’s “Puffy-Face, Chicken-Leg” Syndrome? How do you use the bathroom on a spaceship?

TRISH aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and astronauts, who might one day live and work on the Red Planet.

“Similar to astronauts en route to Mars, we’re all under a bit of isolation right now,” said Dr. Dorit Donoviel, director of TRISH and associate professor at Baylor. “We are happy to share some science with future space explorers and their parents, who are at home during challenging times.”

Join the MarsWednesday chats starting April 1, 2020 at 11:30 a.m. Central. The first episode will feature Donoviel. On April 8, TRISH scientist Dr. Emmanuel Urquieta delivers a bilingual talk in Spanish.

The chats are created in Periscope and posted on Facebook and Twitter. You can find the weekly chat on TRISH's Facebook or on Twitter. You can also search for #MarsWednesday via social media.