THIS IS A SAMPLE OF LECTURES FROM PREVIOUS FESTIVALS
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CAPTAIN, WE DETECT A GHOST UNIVERSE EVERYWHERE!
Dr Francisco Diego (UCL)
Everything that we have always admired, our landscapes on Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the wonderful night sky with the majestic milky way and the vast number of galaxies seen through powerful telescopes, represent only about 4% of the entire Universe. The rest seems like an invisible, transparent ghost! How could we come to this conclusion? In this lecture we examine the visible Universe before dealing with the mysterious existence of exotic forms of matter and energy that have become the target of ambitious international projects, like the Large Hadron Collider and the Dark Energy Survey. The relevance of this research has just been acknowledged by awarding the 2011 Physics Nobel Prize to the astronomers that found evidence for most of the Ghost Universe.
Francisco Diego is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Physics and Astronomy University College London, vice president of the UK Association for Astronomy Education and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.(Image: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA-ESA)
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PUBLIC LECTURE WITH AUDIENCE DISCUSSION, ALL WELCOME
THE BIG BANG MACHINE :
ENGINEERING THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
Prof Jon Butterworth (UCL) and Dr Lyn Evans (CERN)
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Image courtesy of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN)
It is the world's biggest scientific experiment: beams of sub-atomic particles make 11 000 circuits of the 27km Large Hadron Collider every second, meeting in collisions to recreate the conditions near the beginnings of the universe. But how does it work?
Barely the thickness of a human hair, beams of tiny particles are steered precisely by thousands of magnets into collisions up to 40 million times a second. The Large Hadron Collider runs at 300 degrees below room temperature - it is one of the coldest objects in the universe. The pipes where the particles travel are pumped down to an extraordinary vacuum, as empty as interplanetary space.
Prof Jon Butterworth is head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at
UCL and a member of the Atlas experiment at
CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Before this, he grew up in Manchester, did his doctorate in Oxford and worked on the electron-proton collider in Hamburg. He also writes the "Life and Physics" blog for the Guardian.
Dr Lyn Evans was born in Aberdare in 1945. He completed a degree in physics at Swansea University, before being awarded a PhD in physics by the University of Wales in 1970. In 1969, he moved to Geneva and since worked on all the big projects at CERN, gaining a world-wide reputation as an outstanding expert on particle accelerators. He spent the last 15 years leading the international team constructing the Large Hadron Collider, the most complex scientific instrument ever built. He has received many honours including a CBE in 2001.
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THE SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL UNINTELLIGENCE
Prof Jonathan Tennyson (UCL)
It now seems likely that most stars have planets; this raises the very real question of whether any of these planets support life. Searches for life, particularly intelligent life, outside the solar system have so far been unsuccessful. This lecture will discuss scientific approaches to detecting (unintelligent) life using modern observational techniques. Of particular importance, because they are easier to observe, are those planets which pass in front their star when observed from earth. I suggest that at least primitive life on one or more such planet will be found within our lifetimes. Given the difficulty inherent in observing the atmosphere of one planet through that of another one, milestone observations will need to be made from space. Progress dedicated space missions for observing transiting extra-solar planets will be discussed.
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THE SPACE SHUTTLE: FINAL MISSION AND LEGACY
Dr Kevin Fong (UCL)
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Dr Kevin Fong image courtesy of the BBC
For 30 years, the Space Shuttle captivated our imagination by providing a revolutionary road to space exploration. This now iconic project was fundamental for the spectacular success of the Hubble Space Telescope and the assembly of the International Space Station. In this lecture, Dr Fong takes us behind the scenes, to meet the people that dedicated most of their lives to make this dream a reality. This was the theme of an excellent BBC documentary produced around the last flight of the Shuttle fleet.
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WORKING ON MARS TIME
Craig Leff, MSc (MSSL-UCL)
Unlike most previous space missions where scientists and engineers have weeks or months to plan observations along a known orbital path, Mars rover missions routinely encounter a varying set of surface conditions. In reaction to this sometimes unpredictable environment, the rover team plan activities every day, under a very different set of time constraints than their predecessors. What we've learned from NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) has implications for the work being done on upcoming rover missions, such as ExoMars. We'll look at the development of the daily processes used to command a rover mission.
Last colour image of the surface acquired by Spirit on Sol 2190 (courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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Craig
Leff is a researcher at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, where
he is project manager for the ExoMars PanCam, a colour stereo camera for
the upcoming ExoMars rover mission.
Previously, Craig worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he spent five years working on MER, including more than 900 sols (Martian days) of surface operations.
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LIFE: ORIGINS ON EARTH AND SEARCHING THE COSMOS
Image courtesy of Dr Francisco Diego (UCL)
Dr Nick Lane (UCL)
The origin of life on Earth has long been one of the great challenges in biology, if not all science. After half a century of slow progress, research over the last decade has dovetailed in a remarkable way. Work in astrobiology, earth sciences, microbiology, genetics and chemistry all point from radically different perspectives to a particular kind of deep-sea hydrothermal vent as the ideal incubator. Taken together, these exciting developments make it look as if the origin of life was surprisingly easy, and happened amazingly quickly. All that remains is to test it in the laboratory.
Dr Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer in the Department of Genetics,
Evolution and Environment at University College London. His research is
on the origin and early evolution of life. Nick is particularly
interested in the way that cells generate energy, and the extraordinary
effect this has had on the evolution of life on Earth.
He is the author of three acclaimed books on evolution, the last of which, Life Ascending, won the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books. He is a popular lecturer and contributes regularly to magazines like Nature and New Scientist.
Dr Lewis Dartnell (UCL)
If life seemed to start so readily on Earth, what about the chances of life on other worlds? 'Astrobiology' is a brand new field of science, investigating the origins and limits of life on our own planet, and where life might exist beyond the Earth. But what actually is 'life' and what are the most extreme conditions terrestrial organisms can tolerate? And where in the cosmos might we reasonably expect to find ET? Come on a tour of the other planets and moons in our solar system which may harbour life, and even further afield to alien worlds we've discovered orbiting distant stars, to explore one of the greatest questions ever asked: are we alone...?
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Dr Lewis Dartnell is a researcher based at the Centre for Planetary
Sciences, University College London. His research is in the new field
known as astrobiology, and he studies how life, and signs of its
existence, might survive the harsh conditions on the surface of Mars,
including ultraviolet cosmic radiation.
Lewis is also currently working with Nick
Lane on a bioreactor, a tabletop laboratory experiment to recreate the
conditions inside the chimney walls of hydrothermal vents to investigate
processes key to the origins of life on Earth.
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CALLING ALL MARS EXPLORERS
The Importance of Field Trialling Interplanetary Rovers
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Lester Waugh (EADS ASTRIUM)
Image of ExoMars Phase B © ESA - AOES Medialab courtesy of London Science Festival
Bridget is the first breadboard rover developed and built as part of the ExoMars Rover Vehicle Project. Funded by Astrium R&D, Bridget was designed to aid in the development of the flight ExoMars locomotion system, and was later used in the preliminary testing of the autonomous navigation system.
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Bridget now plays an important role in
Astrium’s outreach programme to promote its activities and to increase the student uptake of STEM subjects.
In particular, she demonstrates the link between theoretical engineering and
real spacecraft. Bridget captures the interest of students and the general
public as a whole in a way no other outreach activity does, and engages them on
a number of levels.
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"Astrium Ltd recently hosted Field Trials using their Bridget Rover on the beautiful volcanic island of Tenerife. The purpose of the trials was to gather image data for the EC FP7 funded PRoVisG (Planetary Robotic Vision Ground Processing consortium). The consortium has a range of imaging equipments that were used to capture reference image data resembling Mars/Lunar environments.
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Mr Waugh's lecture describes the challenges of preparing for and conducting such trials and the issues associated with working in the field. He will also establish the importance of such field trials for future missions whose aim is to explore other planets."
Lester Waugh is an opera singer turned engineer and project manager at Astrium. Lester manages the Bridget field trials in Tenerife and has an insider view of the formation and development of the ExoMars Rover project.
Lester has been seen recently with Bridget on the BBC Coast programme. Lester has a strong commitment to educational outreach - and has co-produced a range of great resources about Mars Rovers.
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THE SPACE SHUTTLE:
THIRTY YEARS OF FLIGHTS, THIRTY YEARS OF LESSONS LEARNED
Dr Matt Melis (NASA Glenn Research Center, USA)
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NOTE: this international event has been possible thanks to the support of Footagevault
The Space Shuttle was the most complicated machine designed and built by human beings. An extraordinary team of thousands tirelessly committed itself to safely flying this vehicle since 1981. Thirty years and 135 missions after STS-1, the final Shuttle mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011. During the three decades of Space Shuttle Flight, NASA had countless great triumphs two significant tragedies: Challenger and Columbia. From both tragedy and success, the NASA team took lessons enabling Shuttle to fly safer after every mission.
Dr Matt Melis provides a look into the inner workings of the Space Shuttle and a behind the scenes perspective on the impact analysis and testing done for the Columbia Accident Investigation and NASA's Return to Flight programs. His presentation is full of rich, still and motion picture imagery, and, although technical, is easily understood by all audiences. In addition, highlights from recent Shuttle missions are presented demonstrating how NASA conducts it?s operations differently today as a consequence of the lessons learned from Challenger and Columbia.
(Image courtesy of NASA)
