Astronomy for All Lectures 2012
A series of three lectures at Green Templeton College organised as part of the Public Engagement with Science and Technology initiative and the first astronomical events of the Venus transit year.
All lectures take place at 6pm in the E P Abraham Lecture Theatre, GTC.
All welcome - 'first come, first served'. Entry FREE.
Monday 13 February
Finding Other Earths
Twelve years ago we only knew of eight planets in total and one solar system: now we know of over 2000 and hundreds of stellar systems including, for the first time, Earth-sized bodies. This lecture will look at the current state of discoveries, particularly focussing on the recent Kepler mission announcements. It will also look at the method of viewing Transit events and the continued importance of studying the last Venus transit this century in June 2012.
Speaker: Charles Barclay, Director, Blackett Observatory, Marlborough, and Associate Fellow, Green Templeton College.
Charles Barclay is Director of the Blackett Observatory at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, an academic visitor in Oxford Astrophysics and Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College. At the forefront of UK Astronomy education, he chairs the Royal Astronomical Society education committee and is chair of examiners for Edexcel GCSE Astronomy.
Monday 20 February
Cosmic Lighthouses - Supernovae and the 'Dark Universe'
Supernovae are the explosive deaths of stars that are among the most powerful and luminous events in the Universe. Supernovae are a very important tool for measuring the distances to far away galaxies since they are excellent cosmic lighthouses. They have been used to discover the astonishing fact that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up (the opposite was expected) and that the mysterious quantity, 'dark energy' is responsible. For this discovery, two groups were recently awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. However, surprisingly the properties of these exploding stars are still not well understood. This talk will explore what we know about these extreme, explosive events, some important recent results and the future of supernovae as cosmological probes.
Speaker: Dr Kate Maguire, Oxford Astrophysics.
Kate is a post-doctoral researcher working in Astrophysics in the Department of Physics at Oxford. Her main research interests are supernovae and their use in observational cosmology. Kate did her PhD at Queen's University Belfast working on core-collapse supernovae, before moving to Oxford just over a year ago.
Monday 27 February
Astronomy and Controversy - the Oxford Observatories 1772-1939
The talk will give a brief overview of the origins of the observatories in Oxford, the Radcliffe and the strained relationship with the University and the new Observatory of 1875. Finally the poisoned politics that led to Savilian Professor and Director of the University Observatory Herbert Hall Turner's death in 1929, and the subsequent arrival of astrophysics.
Speaker: Dr Roger Hutchins, Magdalen College, Oxford.
Roger was a Research Associate with and contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). From Oxford University he gained his DPhil in 1999 for a study of British university observatories, published in 2008. He contributed the astronomy chapter to Professor Jeff Burley's remarkable History of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford (available from the Porters' Lodge). He is the Society for the History of Astronomy's coordinator for Oxfordshire within the Society's county survey project.