RAS NAM Public Lectures
Last week was a big event in Belfast - Queens University hosted the National Astronomy Meeting of the Royal Astronomy Society. As part of the event there were three public lectures. I attended all three.
Tuesday evening saw a deeply thought provoking lecture by Professor Mark Bailey, Director of Armagh Observatory on the subject "Tunguska 2008: 100 Years of the NEO Impact Hazard"
The press release...
2008 is the one-hundredth anniversary of the most recent significant extraterrestrial body known to have run into the Earth: the famous 30 June 1908 Tunguska Event, which devastated some 2000 square kilometres of forest in a remote part of Siberia. Since then, advances in astronomy have confirmed that the phenomenon of impacts is a key driver of planetary evolution, ranging from the cause of the largest craters and mare (or "seas") on the Moon, to the evolution of life on Earth. This has led to our modern understanding that impacts by relatively small astronomical bodies (comets, asteroids and fragments thereof) have the potential to produce occasionally catastrophic environmental changes on Earth. The objects, which range in size from typically a few tens of metres across to many kilometres in diameter, orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits that cross those of the planets and are sometimes the closest extraterrestrial objects accessible to direct observations or to visits by spacecraft. Those that cross or come close to the Earth's orbit are called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), and it is these that have the potential to collide with our Earth. This talk will review our growing understanding of the resulting extraterrestrial impact hazard and especially its implications for various aspects of civilization and for our wider understanding of mankind's and Earth's place in the Universe.
Professor Bailey was ably introduced by Professor Alan Fitzsimmons of QUB who was obviously enjoying being the host of this marvellous gathering...
Apologies for the picture quality - I only had the compact camera which lacks the lowlight performance and flash range - for the other meetings I used the DSLR which did much better!
Wednesday evening saw Lars Lindberg Christensen of the European Space Agency talk on "Adventure with the Hubble Space Telescope"
This was a joint IAA/RAS lecture and was also our normal IAA meeting, as such Dr Andy McCrea kicked off with his usual look at the night skies in April...
Here's the press release...
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most successful scientific projects of all time, both in terms of its scientific output and in terms of its almost iconic public appeal. Hubble's enormous impact derives from its ability to exploit a unique scientific niche where no other instruments can really compete at the moment - consistently delivering super-sharp images and clean, uncontaminated spectra, also in the elusive infrared and ultraviolet. This has opened up new scientific territory and resulted in many paradigm-breaking discoveries. Hubble's exquisite image quality has enabled astronomers to gain entirely new insights into the workings of a huge range of different astronomical objects and provided the visual overview of underlying astrophysical processes taking place planets, stars and galaxies.
On top of all this astronomers are lucky scientists. Their telescopes do not only produce results of great scientific value, but also of eye-catching beauty and artistic potential. This talk aims to also show how Hubble has built a bridge between science and art.
Here's Lars and IAA President Pat O'Neill having a chat before the lecture...
And afterwards...
Thursday's lecture was little lighter in content - Professor Francis Keenan of QUB talked on "The Science of Science Fiction in TV and Films".
Science-fiction films and TV shows are extremely popular, with many of the top-grossing movies of all-time being science-fiction, while Star Trek (and its various spinoffs) is one of the most-watched TV series. As a result, for many people their main exposure to scientific ideas and concepts is via the medium of science-fiction films and TV. In this presentation, the accuracy (or otherwise!) of the science in science-fiction films and television programmes is discussed, and illustrated using clips from films and TV shows including Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Aliens.
Professor Keenan was introduced by Dr Don Pollacco of QUB who has recently dicovered another 10 exoplanets with his SuperWASP cameras...
Here's Prof Keenan...
As part of the lecture Professor Keenan demostrated the use of a Light Sabre...
and showed how laser beams don't show up in space as they need something to reflect off - in this case an aerosol spray...
And that was it! I thoroughly enjoyed the public lectures and I'm told the event was a great success!
Tuesday evening saw a deeply thought provoking lecture by Professor Mark Bailey, Director of Armagh Observatory on the subject "Tunguska 2008: 100 Years of the NEO Impact Hazard"
The press release...
2008 is the one-hundredth anniversary of the most recent significant extraterrestrial body known to have run into the Earth: the famous 30 June 1908 Tunguska Event, which devastated some 2000 square kilometres of forest in a remote part of Siberia. Since then, advances in astronomy have confirmed that the phenomenon of impacts is a key driver of planetary evolution, ranging from the cause of the largest craters and mare (or "seas") on the Moon, to the evolution of life on Earth. This has led to our modern understanding that impacts by relatively small astronomical bodies (comets, asteroids and fragments thereof) have the potential to produce occasionally catastrophic environmental changes on Earth. The objects, which range in size from typically a few tens of metres across to many kilometres in diameter, orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits that cross those of the planets and are sometimes the closest extraterrestrial objects accessible to direct observations or to visits by spacecraft. Those that cross or come close to the Earth's orbit are called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), and it is these that have the potential to collide with our Earth. This talk will review our growing understanding of the resulting extraterrestrial impact hazard and especially its implications for various aspects of civilization and for our wider understanding of mankind's and Earth's place in the Universe.
Professor Bailey was ably introduced by Professor Alan Fitzsimmons of QUB who was obviously enjoying being the host of this marvellous gathering...
Apologies for the picture quality - I only had the compact camera which lacks the lowlight performance and flash range - for the other meetings I used the DSLR which did much better!
Wednesday evening saw Lars Lindberg Christensen of the European Space Agency talk on "Adventure with the Hubble Space Telescope"
This was a joint IAA/RAS lecture and was also our normal IAA meeting, as such Dr Andy McCrea kicked off with his usual look at the night skies in April...
Here's the press release...
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most successful scientific projects of all time, both in terms of its scientific output and in terms of its almost iconic public appeal. Hubble's enormous impact derives from its ability to exploit a unique scientific niche where no other instruments can really compete at the moment - consistently delivering super-sharp images and clean, uncontaminated spectra, also in the elusive infrared and ultraviolet. This has opened up new scientific territory and resulted in many paradigm-breaking discoveries. Hubble's exquisite image quality has enabled astronomers to gain entirely new insights into the workings of a huge range of different astronomical objects and provided the visual overview of underlying astrophysical processes taking place planets, stars and galaxies.
On top of all this astronomers are lucky scientists. Their telescopes do not only produce results of great scientific value, but also of eye-catching beauty and artistic potential. This talk aims to also show how Hubble has built a bridge between science and art.
Here's Lars and IAA President Pat O'Neill having a chat before the lecture...
And afterwards...
Thursday's lecture was little lighter in content - Professor Francis Keenan of QUB talked on "The Science of Science Fiction in TV and Films".
Science-fiction films and TV shows are extremely popular, with many of the top-grossing movies of all-time being science-fiction, while Star Trek (and its various spinoffs) is one of the most-watched TV series. As a result, for many people their main exposure to scientific ideas and concepts is via the medium of science-fiction films and TV. In this presentation, the accuracy (or otherwise!) of the science in science-fiction films and television programmes is discussed, and illustrated using clips from films and TV shows including Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Aliens.
Professor Keenan was introduced by Dr Don Pollacco of QUB who has recently dicovered another 10 exoplanets with his SuperWASP cameras...
Here's Prof Keenan...
As part of the lecture Professor Keenan demostrated the use of a Light Sabre...
and showed how laser beams don't show up in space as they need something to reflect off - in this case an aerosol spray...
And that was it! I thoroughly enjoyed the public lectures and I'm told the event was a great success!
Labels: astronomy
posted by Paul at
22:17
1 Comments:
Hi Paul,
Looks like I missed a great lecture, Unfortunately I couldn't make the last meeting. I read your blog because it has more information on the IAA meetings than its own web page. keep up the good work.
Clear skies,
Stevie.
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