Famously referred to as the final frontier, space is about to become a lot more central to the education of school children in Northern Ireland.
Until now, space science has mainly been taught as an off-curriculum fringe activity, often by teachers running after-school astronomy clubs.
But now, in what's thought to be a global first, astronomy and space science are being written into the school curriculum here.
The initiative is the brainchild of Robert Hill, who runs the Northern Ireland Space Office, set up last Autumn by the Armagh Planetarium.
He has been working in tandem with the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) and the Yorkshire Forward based Space Connections group to align space science resources to the new, revised Northern Ireland curriculum.
"We're one of the first science centres to have actively influenced a curriculum directly.
"Together with CCEA and Space Connections we're putting astronomy and space science resources into the curriculum and instead of teachers only being able to spend some time after school on these activities, they can spend time in the classroom and that's a quantum leap."
Pupils are already accessing the Faulkes Telescopes, sited in Hawaii and Australia, via their school computers.
"If you go to Hawaii, it's 11 hours behind us and if you go to Australia it's nine hours ahead of us, so it's always night-time when it's daytime here.
"You just type in the website, book your session, and you can take over a school bus-sized, research-grade telescope.
"What's really wonderful is that because of our push, Northern Ireland is consistently among the highest percentage of users of these telescopes in schools, even though space is not yet really on the curriculum."
'Angles and dimensions'
That will change from September, when the revised curriculum comes on stream.
It seeks to links subjects by theme, and CCEA's Tony Scullion has been using space science to help this process.
"The maths teacher would be looking at the shapes and patterns in the night sky, the angles and dimensions of these shapes.
"The RE teacher would be looking at how different faiths use astral bodies to calculate the dates of religious festivals.
"Drama and English teachers could be looking at the Greek myths which sprang up around planets like Venus and Mars or constellations like Orion the Hunter.
"Science teachers could focus on the life cycle of a star from birth to extinction."
Space has always held a fascination for children, but with resources like the Faulkes Telescope now available, its power to inspire is greater than ever.
'Presenting the results'
Teacher Jacquie Milligan, who runs an after-school astronomy club at Bangor Collegiate school, is delighted that space science is to find a niche in the new curriculum.
"The girls push in the co-ordinates and they can see the telescope slewing round and there's always a gasp when this happens.
"They're learning transferable skills - how to use a high-quality instrument, how to use IT skills and manipulate data.
"They're presenting the results at conferences, making graphs and publishing images."
Last year, two 14-year-olds who used the telescope to image an asteroid had their findings published in the Bulletin of the Minor Planets Centre, published by Harvard University.
They've now opted to take physics at GCSE.
Robert Hill's work at the Northern Ireland Space Office is now being used as a best-practice model in other European countries.
"What we're doing here is using astronomy as the hook to encourage children to take up the STEM activities - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
"They're perceived as difficult, so we're using space science as the tool for inspiration, because this is real science and real technology and there are careers in Europe for pupils who take them up."
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