Nördlingen

Nördlingen

Impact science meets medieval Germany

Medieval Germany at its best

Nördlingen offers international visitors an unusually complete impression of a historic German town. Its narrow lanes, red-tiled roofs, half-timbered houses and traditional inns are enclosed by a fully preserved medieval city wall. The covered walkway extends for about 2.7 kilometres and can be walked all the way around.

At the centre of the old town stands the late-Gothic St George’s Church. Its 90-metre bell tower, known as the Daniel, provides a panoramic view across the town and the surrounding crater landscape.

Covered walkway along the medieval city wall of Nördlingen
The covered medieval city-wall walkway in Nördlingen. Photo: Johannes Robalotoff, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Historic building of the RiesKraterMuseum in Nördlingen
RiesKraterMuseum Nördlingen. Photo: Tueftli, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Nördlinger Ries impact structure

Nördlingen is situated within the Nördlinger Ries, a nearly circular impact crater about 25 kilometres in diameter. It formed approximately 15 million years ago when an asteroid roughly one kilometre across struck the Earth. Excellent exposures of suevite, impact breccias and shocked target rocks make the Ries an important natural laboratory for impact processes and planetary geology.

From the Ries to the Moon

In August 1970, astronauts preparing for the later Apollo 14 and Apollo 17 missions received geological field training in the Ries. The impact structure offered an accessible terrestrial analogue for learning to recognise impact lithologies and practising geological observation and sampling.

RiesKraterMuseum and ZERIN

The RiesKraterMuseum presents the Ries in the wider context of impact cratering and planetary science. Its collections include an original lunar sample returned by Apollo 16. Nearby, ZERIN supports visiting researchers with laboratories, a library and a drill-core repository. The crater is part of the UNESCO Global Geopark Ries.

A taste of southern Germany

The experience continues in Nördlingen’s traditional inns, cafés and beer gardens. Regional Swabian and Bavarian cooking includes sausages, pretzels, hearty meat dishes and local specialities, accompanied – for those who wish – by a German beer.

Vegan food is readily available throughout the town, including in many traditional restaurants, so participants following a plant-based diet will also find plenty of options.

It is a relaxed and very recognisably German setting in which to continue scientific conversations after the formal programme.

Apollo field sites in the Ries · City and visitor information

Beer, pretzel and traditional Bavarian Weißwurst on a rustic wooden table
Bavarian beer, pretzel and Weißwurst. Adapted from a CC0 photograph by Ypsilon from Finland, via Wikimedia Commons; clarity and background enhanced.

How to reach Nördlingen