Physics and Astronomy June 2021 Digest

With exams now behind us, and hopefully a pleasant summer ahead, the Physics Community Team want to share some of the recent highlights from the news blog in May and June 2021.

Our Community

Enormous congratulations to Dr. Jenny Carter on being awarded the prestigious 2021 Caroline Herschel Lectureship by the Royal Astronomical Society, and to Dr. Sarah Casewell and the ‘Backyard Worlds’ team for being the 2021 recipients of a Robert H Goddard award for science. Planetary researcher Naomi Rowe-Gurney was interviewed by the Telegraph, being one of the Leicester applicants to ESA’s competition for the next generation of European astronauts. Congratulations to Dr. Suzie Imber and her team for being awarded a ‘Space for All’ grant to support primary space education in 40 local schools, and you can hear more about Suzie’s research in the #ScienceShambles podcast.


Dr. Henrik Melin was interviewed for a feature on Jupiter for BBC Earth, available to watch online. June brought a partial solar eclipse to the skies of Leicestershire, captured through clouds by members of our School. You can read contributions to the university’s #WomenInSTEM blog by Dr. Suzie Imber and Dr. Harjinder Sembhi. Finally, the School bids a fond farewell to Professor Graham Wynn, and would like to offer a very warm welcome to our SURE2021 summer interns, who will be working on a broad variety of research projects over the coming weeks.


We’d also like to wish a very happy anniversary to the National Space Centre, who celebrated their 20th birthday on June 30th!

Science News

The MXT telescope, with Leicester-designed lobster-eye optics, has been successfully integrated on the Chinese-French satellite observatory SVOM (Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) by CNES. Our planetary science group are busy investigating material from asteroid Ryugu, returned by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) probe Hayabusa2 in 2020, and samples from the Winchcombe meteorite, which fell to Earth earlier this year.


Dr. Jenny Carter blogs about Leicester’s involvement in the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission, scheduled for launch in 2024. And members of the planetary science group are leading the Exploring Mars activities, as well as participating in the Hubble legacy exhibit, for the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition.

Opportunities

The Royal Society Summer Exhibition is taking place on digital platforms between Tuesday 8 and Friday 11 July 2021, featuring content from members of the School. The University is supporting a fabulous new art trail, Rocket Round Leicester, highlighting the city’s space heritage.


There are lots of opportunities, open to all, to learn about some of the exciting research happening within our School through our programme of research seminars, and we’ll continue to showcase some of the best content in blogs, podcasts, radio and TV from the Physics Community – please do consider sending us posts and stories to share, and we hope that you enjoy some well-earned rest during the summer.

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