As we look ahead to a brand new academic year, and with life returning to campus for Leicester’s Centenary Year, the Physics Community team would like to share some of the news stories that have appeared on our School Blog during the summer months.
Anyone within the School is encouraged to submit posts and stories to share, helping us to celebrate successes and achievements, and showcasing some of the best content in blogs, podcasts, radio and TV from our Physics & Astronomy Community. We hope that the best stories will find their way into our annual Yearbook – a reminder that you can catch up on the 2020 and 2019 Yearbooks here. We’ll also help to advertise events and opportunities, such as the forthcoming World Space Week at the National Space Centre, and the farewell tour of the wonderful Rocket Round Leicester trail, so please do get in touch.
Congratulations!
During the summer we were delighted to hear that the Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture 2021 was awarded to Dr Suzie Imber for her achievements in planetary science, and that Dr Beatriz Sánchez-Cano is one of six shortlisted candidates in the ‘Science’ category of the ‘Women of the Future‘ awards – you can learn all about Beatriz’s research in one of our ‘Conversations with…‘ profiles. And as we reported earlier in the summer, Dr. Jenny Carter was announced as the 2021 Caroline Herschel Lectureship Winner – now Jenny has been awarded a prestigious Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship by the Royal Society to continue her research with the SMILE mission.
The summer also brought success to two Leicester AstRoSoc teams in the UKSEDS Satellite Design Competition – 3rd place for the SatXTeam CubeSat that would be launched into lunar orbit to detect, identify, analyse and relay information regarding targeted Lunar landmarks, and 4th place for the ‘Mind Rover Matter‘ team’s small rover that would be utilised to perform specified tasks for assembling a habitat on Mars.
Huge congratulations to all!
Our Research
The summer saw a host of research projects being undertaken by our undergraduates as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). In addition, undergraduate Megan Perks was part of an ESA internship group researching the impact of mega-constellation satellites on space-based telescopes, and you can read all about her experiences and the citizen-science project here.
The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in July featured a range of Leicester research, including the ‘Exploring Mars’ exhibit – you can find out more on the new website, dedicated to the ExoMars ‘Rosalind Franklin’ rover, launching in 2022.
In September, as part of Earth Observation Week, experts at the National Centre for Earth Observation released stunning satellite images depicting the recent gigantic infernos that devastated some of the coldest areas on the planet. And Leicester’s Jupiter research, showcased via a special BBC Sky at Night show from the National Space Centre to mark five years of the Juno mission, made waves with substantial new insights into a decades-old mystery – Jupiter’s unexpectedly high atmospheric temperatures, known as the ‘energy crisis.’
Coming Soon
The 2021-22 academic year will be exciting in so many ways, particularly with upcoming launches: the James Webb Space Telescope in December 2021, followed by SVOM, ExoMars, and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) in 2022. All of these have substantial Leicester involvement and leadership. If we are missing any upcoming events, please do let us know!
To all those returning to Leicester, and to all the newest members of the Physics Community, we wish you a warm welcome, and best wishes for the coming term.
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