Cosmos: the Infographic Book of Space

Posted on 13 October 2015 by Chris North

The human race has always revealed an insatiable hunger to search “to infinity and beyond”. On Sunday 18th October, as part of Penarth Book Festival, Cardiff astrophysicist Chris North and colleague Stuart Lowe will use cutting-edge infographics to illustrate – in a new and unique way – the most amazing places and objects that modern
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Pythagorean Astronomy: In conversation with Mark McCaughrean

Posted on 27 August 2015 by Chris North

On Monday 24th August, Cardiff was treated to a public talk by Prof Mark McCaughrean, Senior Science Advisor in the European Space Agency’s Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration. Mark spoke about the Rosetta mission, which has been studying comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the past year, including the landing of Philae on the comet’s surface amid huge media attention.
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Rosetta: To Catch A Comet

Posted on 31 July 2015 by Chris North

On Monday 24th August Prof Mark McCaughrean will be giving a public talk about the Europan Space Agency’s Rosetta mission. As a Senior Science Advisor at ESA, Mark is heavily involved in all ESA missions, and will be giving fascinating insights into the discoveries made by this remarkable mission. A synopsis of the talk is below. Date and Time:
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Pythagorean Astronomy: New Horizons at Pluto

Posted on 30 July 2015 by Chris North

On 14th July 2015 the New Horizons probe whizzed past Pluto, providing our first ever close-ups of this tiny world at the edge of our Solar System. This month, Edward Gomez and I discuss why Pluto is so fascinating, and what the first few images have told us. We also chatted about this month’s other
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Pythagorean Astronomy: Radio astronomy close-up

Posted on 28 June 2015 by Chris North

Radio telescopes are normally used for looking at very distant objects thousands, millions, or possibly even billions of light years away. But to do that, they have to look through the Earth’s atmosphere. For some radio astronomers the distorting effects of our atmosphere are an annoyance, but earlier this year Australian astronomers using the Murchison
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Student Prize winners for outstanding contribution to Outreach

Posted on 12 June 2015 by Haley Gomez

This year, the School of Physics and Astronomy awarded their inaugural prizes for outstanding contribution to outreach and public engagement to students at a prize-giving ceremony at the annual Chaos Student Ball. The winners of the prizes were Jenifer Millard (undergraduate) and Peri Jones (postgraduate). Postgraduate student Matthew Allen was also highly commended for his
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Pythagorean Astronomy: End of the Messenger

Posted on 30 April 2015 by Chris North

The Messenger probe arrived in orbit around Mercury in March 2011, after a 7 year journey to the innermost planet in our Solar System. It mapped the entire surface of this tiny planet, of which we’d seen less than half from the previous mission back in the 1970s. Far from being a dry, inert ball
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Pythagoras’ Trousers: Making the Invisible, Visible

Posted on 2 April 2015 by Chris North

In this special documentary as part of the Pythagoras Trousers radio series, Rhys Phillips visits his alma mater, Cardiff University’s School of Physics & Astronomy, to find out about a new generation of detectors being developed to help see things in the far infra-red part of the spectrum. With contributions from Chris North, Peter Hargave,
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