UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy

Dr Stephen Feeney has been awarded the runner-up prize for the Michael Penston Thesis Prize 2012. This Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) prize is awarded to the best doctoral thesis in Astronomy and Astrophysics; Stephen's thesis was entitled ‘Novel Algorithms for Early Universe Cosmology'.

 The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission (JUICE) will study Jupiter and its large, ice/ocean-bearing moons. JUICE is planned to launch in 2022 and arrive in 2030. Dr Nick Achilleos (Astrophysics) is part of the J-MAG Consortium, an international team of investigators who have successfully proposed one of the 11 scientific experiments to be flown on board this mission.

Eight billion years ago, rays of light from distant galaxies began their long journey to Earth. On 12 September, that ancient starlight found its way to a mountaintop in Chile, where the newly-constructed Dark Energy Camera, the most powerful sky-mapping machine ever created, captured and recorded it for the first time.

The European Space Agency (ESA) have formally adopted the Euclid Cosmology mission, this is largest collaboration of astronomers in the world, with UCL Astrophysics and MSSL members of staff playing a major roles.

The 2012 Gruber cosmology prize has been awarded to Charles L. Bennett and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) team. Dr Hiranya Peiris (Astrophysics; WMAP Science Team member 2001-2006) is a co-recipient of the prize.

Stephen M. Feeney, Matthew C. Johnson, Daniel J. Mortlock, Hiranya V. Peiris

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 241301 (2012)

After more than ten years of work by over 200 engineers, the Mid InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), a camera so sensitive it could see a candle on one of Jupiter’s moons, has been declared ready for delivery by the European Space Agency and NASA. The MIRI Optical System, an instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that will eventually take up a position four times further away from the Earth than the Moon. It will now be shipped to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where it will be integrated with the other three instruments and the telescope.

Dr David Kipping is the 2011 recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Keith Runcorn Prize for the best doctoral thesis in Geophysics.

Dr Giovanna Tinetti, PhD student Ingo Waldmann and Prof. Jonathan Tennyson FRS  talk to Adam Smith at the Pod Academy about their work on exoplanets and NASA’s Kepler mission

Patrick Guio and co-workers

Prof. Ofer Lahav (Astrophysics) is head of the Dark Energy Survey science programme. In this interview for The Economist, he discusses the rapidly expanding universe and the future of dark-energy research.

ESA’s Planck mission has revealed that our Galaxy contains previously undiscovered islands of cold gas and a mysterious haze of microwaves. These results give scientists new treasure to mine and take them closer to revealing the blueprint of cosmic structure.

The new results are being presented this week at an international conference in Bologna, Italy, where astronomers from around the world are discussing the mission’s intermediate results.

Many congratulations to David Kipping, winner of the 2011 Faculty Postgraduate Research Prize, and to Marian Breuer, winner of the 2011 Faculty Postgraduate Taught Prize.

Dr Giovanna Tinetti (Astrophysics Group) talks about the exoplanet Kepler-22b, and how we can look for signs of life on distant planets.

Dr Hiranya Peiris, a member of the Astrophysics group, has been awarded the 2012 Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Fowler Prize for Early Achievement in Astronomy.

Professor Ofer Lahav, a member of the Astrophysics group, is one of five UCL members of staff to have been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant Award.

The project will look at ‘Testing the Dark Energy Paradigm and Measuring Neutrino Mass with the Dark Energy Survey'. It is due to commence on 1 May 2012 and is worth 2.4M Euro.

Frédérick Poidevin, P. Bastien, T. J. Jones, ApJ, 741, 112 (2011)

Dr Giovanna Tinetti talks to Sir Patrick Moore for the BBC tv programme 'The Sky at Night' about the search for a planet like Earth and alien life.

• Stephen M. Feeney, Matthew C. Johnson, Daniel J. Mortlock, Hiranya V. Peiris, First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 071301

• Stephen M. Feeney, Matthew C. Johnson, Daniel J. Mortlock, Hiranya V. Peiris, First observational tests of eternal inflation: Analysis methods and WMAP 7-year results, Phys. Rev. D 84, 043507