Special Exhibition "Rocky Roads to Life"

The exhibition focuses on the close relationship between rock and life. It opens up various paths that lead to the origins, relationships and characteristics of the living world.

Trail of light over Bavaria

Social media and newspapers reported on a trail of light in the night sky that was visible last night and shone brighter than the moon. The event was also captured on the cameras of the Ries Crater Museum at 10.45 pm. It is not yet clear whether remnants of the chunk of rock that burned up in the atmosphere reached the earth.

Click here for the pictures

New article about ESA geological austronaut training

In recent years, astronauts have visited the Ries Crater and the Ries Crater Museum as part of an ESA geological training program. A scientific publication about the training was published at the beginning of the year - a summary of the article is now available in five languages. You can read the German version on our blog.

Nördlinger Ries

Around 15 million years ago, an asteroid around 1 km in size collided with the earth. The result of this cosmic encounter is the Nördlinger Ries, a striking landform carved into the Swabian-Franconian Alb. The approximately 25 km large, almost circular impact crater is one of the best-preserved craters of this size. The ejecta blanket of the Ries crater with the two most important rock formations such as suevite and variegated breccia is excellently exposed and was used by the Apollo astronauts as a training area for their moon missions. Follow in the footsteps of the astronauts!

30th anniversary of the RiesKraterMuseum

On May 6, 1990, the RiesKraterMuseum Nördlingen opened its doors in an architecturally pioneering renovated barn building, the old “Holzhofstadel”, which is over 500 years old. Since its opening, the museum has welcomed well over 1,000,000 visitors.

History of the museum

Greetings from the Moon

50 years ago, Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. The RiesKraterMuseum has a special relationship to this fascinating event: in mid-1970, Apollo astronauts trained in the Nördlinger Ries for upcoming missions to the lunar highlands. Charles Duke (Apollo-16) removed the lunar “suevite” in 1972, which has been on display in the RiesKraterMuseum since 1990 and the museum still maintains close contact with NASA and ESA today.

Moon rock

RiesCraterMuseum Nördlingen

The RiesCraterMuseum is a natural science museum with the central theme of the formation and significance of impact craters and the crater “Nördlinger Ries” in particular. In an elaborately renovated medieval barn building dating back to 1503, the Ries event with its planetological roots and its earthly effects, which continue to have an impact to this day, is presented in six rooms.

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News

26 09

RiesCraterMuseum the venue for the ESA astronaut training programm 2024

26. September 2024 | Blog

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22 11

The RiesCraterMuseum goes to school!

22. November 2024 | Blog

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17 03

Opening of the new special exhibition: “Rocky Roads to Life”

17. March 2025 | Blog

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Blog

Sky over Nördlingen

Our 360° camera regularly photographs the sky above Nördlingen. The current image allows you to see what the weather is like in Nördlingen from anywhere. However, this is not the only purpose, because a time-lapse movie is created from the respective pictures of the night before – so we can also observe what was going on during the night.

Click here for the time-lapse movie of last night.

(aktualisiert einmal pro Minute)