Spacecraft exploration of our solar system

Astronomy For All Lecture 2022

The Astronomy For All Lecture Series was started by Associate Fellow Charles Barclay in 2006 as a way of strengthening and reinforcing the link between Green Templeton, home of the Radcliffe Observatory, and astronomy and the Oxford Astrophysics Department, in particular.

About the talk

For thousands of years, humanity has explored the Solar System by observing with the naked eye. Only for the last few hundred years since the advent of the telescope have we been able to get a closer view of some of our nearer neighbours.

But it is only in the last 60 years that our knowledge of the Solar System has been revolutionized by the advent of the space age. By visiting many of the most interesting objects in the Solar System, coupled with amazing technical developments in our instrumentation, our understanding of the Solar System has been transformed.

I will cover some of the most interesting and unexpected results of the space era study of the Solar System, including some of the missions with which I have been involved.

About the Speaker

Professor John Zarnecki pictured at the British National Space Centre in London Credit: Susannah Ireland / The Times

John Zarnecki studied Physics at the University of Cambridge, followed by a PhD at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London. His PhD focused on the x-ray emission from supernova remnants, and included the first ever high resolution detection of an x-ray spectral feature from a cosmic x-ray source. John’s experience of space research includes sounding rockets, Earth-orbiting and interplanetary missions at British Aerospace, The University of Kent and The Open University. It also includes the Hubble Space Telescope, Giotto to Halley’s comet and Cassini/Huygens to Saturn & Titan.

He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society 2016-2018, received its Gold Medal in 2014 and has been a member of various national and international bodies, including Chair of the UK Space Agency Science Programme Advisory Committee. He holds awards from NASA and ESA and was an inaugural winner of the Arthur Clarke Award in 2005.

Retired from the Open University, he chaired the European Space Agency’s Space Science Advisory Committee 2017-2019 and was a Director at the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland 2013-2016.

Registration

Contact

Please contact events@gtc.ox.ac.uk if you require assistance with registration or have any questions about the event.