UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy

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

Dr Giovanna Tinetti from the Astrophysics Group has been awarded the Institute of Physics (IOP) Moseley Medal "For her work, pioneering the use of infrared, primary transit spectroscopy to characterise the molecular composition of extra solar planets."

M. Matsuura, E. Dwek, M. Meixner, M. Otsuka, B. Babler, M. J. Barlow, et al, Science, 2011

 A new supernova was seen to erupt in Messier 51, the 'Whirlpool Galaxy', on 2011 May 31, and was widely announced on June 2. This image, with the supernova indicated, was taken at the University of London Observatory (ULO) on June 3 by Dr Steve Fossey and Bob Winter using a C14 telescope. At magnitude 14, the supernova is unusually bright – 'only' about 4000 times fainter than can be seen with the unaided eye.

Artist and UCL alumna Katie Paterson, the first artist-in-residence at the UCL Astrophysics Group, is exhibiting work inspired by the programme in several international galleries.

BBC Radio 4 are rebroadcasting a programme about the Herschel Space Telescope. Originally broadcast in November 2009, Prof. Bruce Swinyard and co-workers feature in this programme which follows the engineers and astronomers who worked on the biggest telescope ever sent to space.

The Astrophysics Group has been awarded a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, enabling artist Katie Paterson (b.1981, Glasgow) to join the Group as their first Artist in Residence, for the academic year 2010-11.

M. J. Barlow, R. Wesson, M. Matsuura, G. Savini, B Swinyard, J. A. Yates and co-authors

Nature, 467, 64–67, (2010)

By joining forces with the other ESA mission XMM, the Planck satellite has confirmed the existance of a new super-cluster of galaxies.

Shaun A. Thomas, Filipe B. Abdalla, and Ofer Lahav

Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 031301 (2010)

The Observatory is developing the capability of operating suitable telescopes from off-site, a process initially made possible by a CIF grant allowing purchase of equipment enabling a dome to track the motion of the telescope it houses. Over the summer months a concerted and continuing effort has been made by Observatory staff to tackle remaining mechanical and software challenges, with undergraduate involvement made possible through bursaries provided by the Nuffield Trust and the Royal Astronomical Society.

This picture is the first full-sky image from Europe's Planck telescope which was sent into space last year to survey the "oldest light" in the cosmos.