On February 11th the School of Physics and Astronomy joined in with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science celebrations, using Twitter (@PhysicsUoL) to showcase some of the valuable, innovative research currently being led by women around the School.
In a series of three posts, we’ll share some highlights from the day, taking in everything from the search for signs of life on the surface of Mars to some of the furthest, most energetic events in the universe. We’ll start by showcasing some of our planetary explorers.
Planetary Explorers
We start our journey on the microscopic scale with Dr Melissa McHugh, a postdoc in instrumentation working on the UK Raman Laser Spectrometer team. The RLS is due to fly to Mars in 2022 as part of the ESA ExoMars rover, and will help search for signs of past and present life on the surface of the Red Planet.
Working our way out to the gas giants, Dr Arrate Antuñano is leading a long-term study of the belts and zones that comprise Jupiter’s atmosphere. Amongst other results, the study has for the first time uncovered a periodic pattern of equatorial disturbances which occurs every 6-7 years.
Further pioneering work on the gas giants by PhD student Emma Thomas, as part of the H3+ team, has helped make the first ever observations of the infrared aurora in the atmosphere of Uranus – a signal which the team has sought in telescope observations of the planet for over twenty years.
Another PhD student, Rosie Tilbrook, is setting her sights even further afield with her work on exoplanet discovery. She has been using observations from the Next Generation Transit Survey to characterise 4 newly-discovered hot Jupiters – a class of gas giant exoplanets which orbit very close to their host star.
In the next instalment of this series, we’ll take a leap up the spatial scale to celebrate some of the incredible new developments in astronomy being led by women in the School.
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