Dr Isobel Romero-Shaw

Friday 5th January 2024 7.30 pm in the BRLSI, can be attended either in the BRLSI or remotely on Zoom

The image is a still from a video simulation of merging balck holes © NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Gravitational waves — ripples in the space-time fabric of the Universe — were predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916. After 100 years of advancements in technology and theory, in 2015, the seminal first detection was made. That first signal came from two black holes, each 30 times more massive than the Sun, elegantly spiralling around each other before crashing together. That signal heralded a new era of gravitational-wave astrophysics, and almost 100 gravitational wave signals have been detected in the subsequent eight years. Yet even with this abundance of detections, there is one big unanswered question in gravitational-wave astrophysics: how do merging binary black holes form? Do the black holes live long lives in each other’s company, or meet only shortly before they merge? In this talk, we will explore the different possible formation channels for binary black holes. We will observe gravitational waves, and draw out details that contain whispers of the biographies of the binaries that produced them. Finally, we will review the most recent results as to the origins of our mergers, and look towards the data-rich future of gravitational-wave astrophysics.

Isobel is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge, where she studies gravitational waves from the collisions of black holes (and sometimes neutron stars). Previously, Isobel did her PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and has her MSci in Physics from the University of Birmingham.

Recording available here.

The Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture 2023

7.00 pm Thursday 16th November 2023 at the 10E 0.17 Lecture Theatre, University of Bath and online via Zoom

Dr Marie van der Sande
University of Leiden

Dr Marie Van de Sande discusses why a multidisciplinary approach is necessary in understanding how stars like our sun die.

Astrochemistry is a vibrant and interdisciplinary field that brings together astronomy, physics, and chemistry. While there is an enormous effort in understanding the chemistry of stellar birth and youth, the chemistry of stellar death is as important: the death throes of sun-like stars enrich the galaxy with fresh material to form the next generation of stars and planets by losing their outer layers by means of a gentle outflow. The presence of a companion star or planet is thought to produce intricate structures within the outflow, giving rise to the beautiful shapes of planetary nebulae, the later stage in the star’s life and an important part of Caroline Herschel’s surveys. This opens up the question of the fate of our own Solar System. To understand exactly how stars like our Sun die and how they are recycled into the next generation of stars and planets, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary, with astrochemistry playing a leading role.”

Background of Speaker

Dr Marie Van de Sande is an Oort Fellow at Leiden Observatory at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She studies the chemistry around dying sun-like stars by developing novel chemical models and comparing their results to observations. Marie obtained her PhD in 2018 from KU Leuven (Belgium), where she stayed on as a fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). She moved to the University of Leeds as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow in 2021 and relocated to Leiden in September this year.”

The video recording of the lecture is freely available here.

The Caroline Herschel Prize Lectureship was established in 2018 by what is now the Herschel Society, in association with the Royal Astronomical Society, to celebrate Caroline’s memory by supporting promising women astronomers early in their careers. Caroline, William’s younger sister, started out as his assistant, but in time became recognised as an important astronomer in her own right, was the first to be paid as such, and was awarded the RAS Gold Medal in 1828. The Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture is hosted by University of Bath in November in cooperation with the Society as part of the University’s public lecture series. Charles Draper, Chairman, Herschel Society.

Dr Robert Fosbury

Friday 13th October 2023 7.30 pm in the BRLSI, can be attended either in the BRLSI or remotely on Zoom

Lecture 2 of 4 on the theme ‘Conserving the Planet’ in association with the Herschel Museum of Astronomy

Image shows a chart of spectra and the effect on life © Bob Fosbury

Sunlight is the dominant energy source for Earth’s biosphere. There will be evolutionary advantages for life that make the most effective use of available photons before they finally degrade to heat and radiate back into space. Photosynthesis in cyanobacteria and in plants uses water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to synthesise the sugars that build plant structures. These can be used directly as food for animals to eat but can also be captured and stored for long periods as ‘fossil fuels’.

It has taken over two centuries to gain an understanding of the how photosynthesis works and yet we are only just beginning to appreciate the ways by which light interacts with animal life. Apart from the obvious use of light for vision — the evolution of which is thought to have driven the Cambrian explosion in life’s complexity — we now know that light performs other functions, many of which require photons with colours beyond the visual range but still reaching the biosphere from the Sun. Research is revealing which colours have beneficial effects and which are damaging. Over billions of years, the biosphere has adapted to thrive under the solar spectrum modified during its transmission through the atmosphere. The introduction of artificial lighting on a huge scale over the planet during recent decades is breaking this adaptation in ways that are damaging to life, including humans. This understanding allows us to suggest new lighting strategies that should have very significant health benefits and which could be less costly than the current extravagant overuse of energy-efficient but environmentally damaging white lights.

Robert (Bob) Fosbury is currently an emeritus astronomer at the European Southern Observatory and an honorary professor at the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL.

A link to a video recording of this lecture is available here.

A link to an extended paper on this subject titled Light-life interactions beyond photosynthesis by Robert Fosbury and Glen Jeffery is available as a PDF file here.

First Results from the James Webb Space Telescope

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far. Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and it is teeming with thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared.
Image credit: NASA

Friday 5th May 2023 7.30 pm in the BRLSI and can be attended remotely on Zoom.

Richard Ellis
Professor of Astrophysics, UCL

The first billion years after the Big Bang represent the final frontier in assembling a complete picture of cosmic history. During this period early galaxies formed and the universe first became bathed in light.

How and when did all this occur? Recent progress with the James Webb Space Telescope suggests we may soon witness this dramatic period when the universe emerged from darkness. The motivation is fundamental: the origin of starlight began the chemical evolution which ultimately led to our own existence in this remarkable universe.

Richard Ellis is Professor of Astrophysics at University College London. A Welshman by birth he has held professorial positions at Durham, Cambridge and Oxford universities and spent 16 years at the California Institute of Technology where he was Director of the Palomar Observatory. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Australian Academy of Sciences, and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society for his research achievements in cosmology and galaxy evolution. One of the most highly-cited astronomers, he has recently published a semi-autobiographical account of the progress over his career in studying distant galaxies in “When Galaxies Were Born: The Quest for Cosmic Dawn” (Princeton 2022).

“When Galaxies Were Born: The Quest for Cosmic Dawn” is available from Amazon at a cost of £23 with free delivery on this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Galaxies-Were-Born-Cosmic/dp/0691211302. Anyone who brings a copy of the book to the lecture can get it signed by Richard Ellis.

A recording of the lecture is freely available here.

Image of Laser guide stars in action at ESO’s VLT – credit: ESO/P. Horálek

Friday 3rd March 2023 7.30 pm given in person at the BRLSI and can be attended either in the BRLSI or remotely on Zoom.

Professor Mike Edmunds
President of the RAS and Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University

How have advances in technology changed astronomy over the past 100 years? In this talk I will show just how closely discovery has followed technical innovation, allowing observations that would previously have seemed impossible. Obviously great advances have come with spaceflight allowing observations from outside the Earth’s atmosphere, but two other factors have also been crucial – the development of efficient detectors of electromagnetic radiation and the application of computers to both instrument control and data analysis. Driving down experimental errors in pursuit of ever-more accurate measurements has been important too. I will particularly highlight advances in cosmology, the nature of galactic nuclei and the discovery of exoplanets.

Mike Edmunds is Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales. Both his first degree (Natural Sciences) and Ph.D (Astronomy) were from the University of Cambridge. He moved to Cardiff University in 1974, where he was in succession Research Fellow, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor, serving as Head of School between 2002 and 2005. Prof. Edmunds. main areas of research have been in the determination and interpretation of the chemical composition of galaxies and the Universe, and on the origin of interstellar dust.

In recent years he has worked in the history of astronomy. He also has particular interests in physics education and public outreach. He has served on the Councils (and many committees and panels) of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and the UK Science and Technology Council. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was the 2004 George Darwin lecturer on “The Elementary Universe” for the Royal Astronomical Society, and has just retired as Chair of their Astronomical Heritage Committee. He is also Chair of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, Chair and Member of the Institute of Physics Curriculum and Welsh Education Committees and a vice-president of the Herschel Society.

A recording of this lecture is freely available here.