The European Space Agency ESA at the GEOPARC Bletterbach

The European Space Agency ESA at the GEOPARC Bletterbach

Since 2016, the European Space Agency has trained a total of ten astronauts from three space agencies with the basic knowledge and skills in field geology needed to explore celestial bodies such as the Moon or the planet Mars – in the Ries impact crater in Germany, on the Spanish volcanic island of Lanzarote, in the Norwegian fjords of the Lofoten and in the GEOPARC Bletterbach in South Tyrol.

With the Artemis programme, the NASA, in cooperation with international partners, is planning to land astronauts on the moon again for the first time since Apollo 17. Geological expeditions on the lunar surface are planned, for which the astronauts will prepare within the framework of the PANGAEA programme, that takes place among others in the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Bletterbach. The future moonwalkers will have to make quick and well-founded scientific decisions on their mission. This will involve deciding which rock samples to bring back to Earth.

According to ESA, the similarity of the selected training sites in Europe to the geology of the Moon and Mars gives the exploration a realistic dimension. In the Bletterbach gorge, ESA came across striking similarities between the gorge, part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage and the red planet Mars, especially the gypsum inclusions and the sandstone sequences. The photo exhibition at the visitor centre in Aldein, “A journey from Bletterbach to Mars”, juxtaposes amazing photographs of Martian landscapes with the geological strata of the Bletterbach gorge.