After lunch we went to the Cosmos Centre for the solar presentation. The guide gave us a brief introduction and facts about the sun. It is 150 million kms from Earth. To rotate once the sun spins at different speeds, 25 days at the equator and 35 days at the poles. We then were handed glasses to allow us to look directly at the sun before we all had turns of looking through a specific telescope made for looking at the sun. We were able to see the surface of the sun which looks similar to orange peel and to see some solar flares coming out the sides of it. The guide then attached something to the telescope to allow photos to be taken on our phones. There were 8 people, including us. Back in the car we headed for Vortex Rainmaking Gun. Designed and used to downscale hailstorms over vineyards in Italy, a meteorologist thought these guns could also be used to create rain. Charleville was in the grip of drought so an experiment was carried out in 1902. Six, 18ft conical candle snuffer shaped guns were placed at various locations around the town. The guns were filled with gunpowder and blasted into the sky to hopefully change the atmospheric pressure and trick the sky into raining. Of course this didn't happen. Next port of call the Bilby Experience. The Greater Bilby is an endangered species with as few as 400 to 600 remaining in the wild. We had a PowerPoint presentation on the Bilby and how the save the Bilby foundation was established before we went in to watch 3 Bilbys in a replica of their natural environment. The guide tipped out some live bugs and the Bilbys ran around the enclosure sniffing out the bugs to eat. They were larger than I expected. I expected them to be rat size but they were more rabbit size.
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