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To see
a replay of
Professor
Carlos Frenk's
lecture
webcast
CLICK HERE
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To see
a replay of
Professor
Andrew Knoll's
lecture
webcast
CLICK HERE
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To see
a replay of
Dr John Murray's
lecture
webcast
CLICK HERE
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To see
a replay of
Professor
John Zarnecki's
lecture
webcast
CLICK HERE
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The 2009 CEPSAR Christmas Lecture
This year's CEPSAR Christmas Lecture will be given by Professor Richard Fortey and is entitled "Adventures in Search of Fossils" on Monday 14 December 2009 at 2pm in the Berrill Lecture Theatre at The Open University.
Professor Fortey is a palaeontologist, formerly employed by the Natural History Museum in London. He says of his lecture "I have spent forty years going around the world in search of my animals - trilobites. During that time I have had several adventures - geologists are like cats with nine lives, and I have used eight of mine. I’ll talk about some of the excitements of life as a palaeontologist interested in the earliest animals.
Entrance is free, if you would like to attend the lecture, please contact cepsar@open.ac.uk. |
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Professor Richard Fortey |
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Rosetta Makes Final Earth Fly-by Today
The Rosetta space mission, carrying the PSSRI developed Ptolemy mass spectrometer, makes the fourth and final planetary flyby of its mission this Friday morning. Rosetta, with a mass of 3,000 kg, was too heavy to be boosted directly to its target, comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and has instead spent the last five years spinning a convoluted course through the inner Solar System, using flybys of planets to boost its orbital energy. To date, Rosetta has flown past Earth twice, and Mars once, as well as passing by the asteroid 2867 Steins last year to gather data.
Today's close approach with the Earth sees Rosetta passing 2,481km above Java, Indonesia, at 48,018 kph. The flyby will add about 13,000 kph to Rosetta’s orbital speed around the Sun, throwing the three-ton probe outwards towards the inner reaches of the outer Solar System. From here, Rosetta will pass close by the asteroid 21 Lutetia next July, before hibernating for three years, and arriving at its target comet in early 2014.
The flyby follows on from a successful checkout, where Ptolemy, aboard the Rosetta Lander ‘Philae’, was turned on and gathered important housekeeping and qualification data. Ptolemy is gearing up for science operations during next July’s asteroid flyby, as well as preparing for operations around and on the surface of the comet in five years time.
Today sees the last chance for the Rosetta science team to see their spacecraft (visible through medium amateur telescopes), and to bid their craft a final farewell on its voyage to an icy encounter.
Find out more about the Rosetta mission by visiting ESA's site by following the link below. |
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An artist's impression of the Rosetta spacecraft flying by Earth.
Image:ESA |
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PSSRI Students Defy Gravity To Investigate Asteroids!
The AstEx team, winners of the ESA Education Fly your Thesis competition, entered weightlessness for the very first time yesterday.
The team consists of three students; Ben Rozitis a PhD Student at the Open University, Naomi Murdoch a PhD student at both the Open University and the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (France) and Thomas de Lophem a mechanical engineer studying for a second degree (in physics) at the Open University.
Their parabolic flight experiment contains over one million small glass beads and is designed to investigate how granular material moves on the surface of an asteroid. A typical km-sized asteroid's small mass results in a very low level of gravity at its surface. This means the surface material may behave in a very different way to similar material on Earth. As Naomi's research focuses on the behaviour of granular material on planetary bodies the results of the experiment will form a large part of her thesis.
For more information about the experiment and to see some pictures of the experiment preparation and zero-g experience visit the AstEx website by following the link below.
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PSSRI students Naomi Murdoch and Ben Rozitis during the zero gravity flight.
Image: A. Le Floc'h (ESA)
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CEPSAR Scientist Appears On "The Sky At Night"
CESPAR scientist Dr Dave Rothery makes another appearance on BBC television's long-running series The Sky at Night, hosted by Sir Patrick Moore, next week. The main feature this month is Jupiter, which is currently very prominent in the sky (look south after dark and you can't miss it) and is especially topical because it was struck by a comet (or some other object) that left a significant scar in its atmosphere last July.
Dr Rothery says, "Its always a pleasure spending time with Sir Patrick. My fellow guest Dr John Rogers was there as the Jupiter expert. I was brought in to talk about Jupiter's satellites, having been part of a (very large) team that scoped out the nature of a future ESA mission to Jupiter, which has become the NASA-ESA Europa Jupiter System Orbiter", you can find out more about the mission here.
"But I think the main reason why Sir Patrick picked me this time is because of my 1992/1999 book Satellites of the Planets, which over dinner he urged me to write a new edition for."
The programme is first shown on Monday 7 September 2009 at 01.40 on BBC 1 and will also be available on BBC's iplayer.
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Dr Dave Rothery talking to Sir Patrick Moore on this month's "The Sky at Night". ! |
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CEPSAR Appoints Its Third Director
CEPSAR is pleased to announce the appointment of its third Director. Professor Simon Kelley from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences began his term of office earlier in August. |
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CEPSAR's Prof. Colin Pillinger Involved In Apollo 11 Celebrations
It's a busy time for CEPSAR's Professor Colin Pillinger as we near the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Colin was one of the first people in Britain to research the lunar material brought back by Apollo 11 when he analysed the samples at the University of Bristol (Dr Judith Pillinger made the slides).
He is much in demand by the media for his recollections about what he calls the greatest technological achievement of all time. He has already given interviews to the News Channel and Anglia TV and will be opening the York Maize Maze on Friday 17 July. On Monday 20 July he expects to be on BBC Breakfast. For those of you who read THES (Times Higher Education Supplement), Colin has written an article about what the British did for the Apollo missions which appears in this week's edition. He is also taking part in a BNSC event at Jodrell Bank which will allow various people's voices to be bounced off the Moon. In collaboration with New Scientist, he was involved in a competition for which the prize was a piece of lunar meteorite which was authenticated as genuine moon material by the members of PSSRI, Richard Greenwood, Ian Franchi and Diane Johnson and by Andy Tindle of Earth and Environmental Sciences. |
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Prof. Colin Pillinger (foreground) carefully opens Lunar samples from NASA's Apollo 11 mission at Bristol University in 1969. |
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Studentships Available To Celebrate The Open University's Anniversary
To celebrate the Open University’s 40th Anniversary we are offering a number of research studentships.
These studentships provide opportunities for the best national or international candidates to work alongside leading academics and research staff on projects that will inspire and shape our research portfolio.
They will cover all fees for three years plus an annual stipend and are tenable from 1 October 2009. Suitable candidates should have or expect to graduate with a minimum 2:1 honours degree.
For further information on projects available please visit our departmental websites by following the links below for project and contact information.
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Physics and Astronomy
Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute |
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CEPSAR Members To Lead NERC Methane Network
Question: Why study methane? Answer: ‘It’s a gas’.
Bad jokes aside, NERC recently acknowledged that research into this important gas deserves greater attention. Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to modern climate change and it was complicit in some of the major periods of environmental change this planet has witnessed; it is emitted from living ecosystems, deep ocean sediments, industrial and agricultural activity as well as from domestic waste and it plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry. It could also be a marker for life on other planets.
The fact that the study of this gas is conducted by researchers working across the full range of the natural and applied sciences means that communication between workers is sometimes lacking, perhaps to the detriment of overall progress in key areas such as climate change. NERC have sought to remedy this situation with the funding of a “Methane Network” under the Earth System Science Theme for which we in Earth and Environmental Sciences (Vincent Gauci (PI) and Anthony Cohen (Co-I)) were the successful bidders.
A range of activities are planned including a series of focused workshops, a two-day discussion meeting at the Royal Society and the initiation of a biennial International Methane Conference. To link these elements and to provide a community home we shall be developing a website that harnesses the latest in social networking tools to enable the community to thrive.
We would welcome those with a methane interest, however tangential or closeted to get in touch.
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Agriculture contributes to methane output. |
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CEPSAR Assists New Scientist To Authenticate Moon Rock Prize
To mark the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo landing, New Scientist is offering readers the chance to win a little piece of the moon. The magazine is inviting its readers to suggest what Neil Armstrong should have said when he made that one small step for man. The best entry will win a rare piece of lunar meteorite.
It takes a battery of tests to tell if a meteorite really comes from the moon and to do this New Scientist enlisted the help of CEPSAR members Prof Colin Pillinger, Dr Richard Greenwood, Dr Ian Franchi, Dr Andy Tindle, Michelle Higgins and Dr Diane Johnson here at the Open University. Prof Pillinger said "It is more difficult to tell a lunar rock from a terrestrial one than any other, they are more valuable to collectors, even than Mars meteorites, but they are harder to be sure about."
A feature describing the analysis will appear in next week’s issue of New Scientist (20 June).
To find out more about the competition follow the link below. |
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CEPSAR Researchers Are Sharing Their Enthusiasm For Astronomy As Part Of The International Year Of Astronomy
A team led by Dr Carole Haswell took 130 telescope kits into Fulbrook Middle School, Bedfordshire, where year 7 and year 8 pupils used them to learn about lenses and telescopes. Each student built their own telescope and took it home to keep and share with family and friends. Visiting the school with Dr Haswell were Dr Andrew Norton, Dr Lindsey Shaw Greening, Dr David Wilson and Dr Simon Green. As well as helping the pupils in the telescope activities, they shared their personal experiences of studying science, and the diverse careers - from rocket science to running a small business - they have followed.
If you would like the telescope team to visit your school, please ask your science teacher to contact the project secretary, Tracy Bartlett (t.a.bartlett@open.ac.uk).
Find out more about the International Year of Astronomy by following the link below. |
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Pupils at Fulbrook Middle School using the telescopes they built themselves. |
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Fossil Detectives Returns To BBC TV
This BBC/OU TV series is being repeated on Sundays on
BBC 4, starting at 8pm on Sunday 14 June. For details of these eight, magazine-style, 30-minute programmes covering fossil finds in different areas of Britain, follow the link below. |
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CEPSAR Researcher Wins Place On NESTA Programme
Amid strong competition, CEPSAR researcher Clare Warren was selected to participate in a series of innovation labs being run by NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). The three workshops form part of NESTA’s Crucible programme and act as a forum to allow 30 early-career researchers to initiate collaborative research across a range of disciplines. The first workshop, held in late April at Royal Holloway, was organised around the theme of "wider community" and provided insight into how best to share research findings with the media and the wider public, and how researchers can get involved with governmental policy-making decisions.
The next two workshops in June (Lancaster) and October (Exeter) deal with "regional community", and "local community", and full details of the programme are yet to be revealed. The Open University was particularly well represented in this year's intake with staff members from the Institute of Educational Technology, Department of Sociology and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. |
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PIRATE Measures Transit Of Extrasolar Planet
The OU's exploratory robotic telescope project PIRATE achieved another milestone, with the observation of a full transit lightcurve of an extrasolar planet. PhD student Stefan Holmes, with his supervisors Ulrich Kolb and Carole Haswell, is investigating the use of PIRATE for winnowing extrasolar planet transit candidates identified by the SuperWASP consortium. During the ongoing commissioning phase, Stefan obtained the lightcurve of XO-1, a previously known Jupiter-mass planet that transits its 11th magnitude, Sun-like host star in the constellation Corona Borealis. The lightcurve shown in the Figure demonstrates that PIRATE is capable of detecting intensity dips of a few percent, the tell-tale sign of a planet passing in front of its host star. Stefan is advancing the early PIRATE commissioning work carried out in July and August 2008 by Haswell's Nuffield-funded summer student Samantha Rolfe. Meanwhile, Samantha is using PIRATE for her project work at the University of Leicester, where she is studying for an MPhys degree. The piCETL-funded PIRATE project is led by Ulrich Kolb, with significant contributions by Rob Lucas (piCETL) and Vadim Burwitz (Mallorca Observatory and MPE, Garching).
To see the diagram on the right in more detail click here.
For more information on PIRATE follow the link below.
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Brightness of XO-1 relative to a nearby constant brightness comparison star. The blue ticks at the bottom indicate the predicted beginning, midpoint and endpoint of the transit, based on previously observed transit events. The dip in XO-1's brightness between Tstart and Tend is caused by the planet XO-1b passing in front of the star as it proceeds around its orbit.
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LOFAR Consortium To Meet At The Open University
A Meeting of the Management Board of the LOFAR Radio Telescope project will be held in the Department of Physics & Astronomy on Friday 3rd April, hosted by Glenn White, Professor of Astronomy in CEPSAR.
LOFAR is a new radio telescope that will operate at radio frequencies between 30 and 240 MHz, that promises a 100-fold improvement in both angular resolution and sensitivity compared to current telescopes. Currently being constructed at many sites across Europe, it will eventually consist of about 50 radio telescopes each with a collecting area of several hundred square metres. The signals from the whole array of telescopes are joined by high capacity fibre optic networks that link into a central facility in The Netherlands, where the signals will be correlated with each other and processed in a dedicated IBM Blue Gene computer. The first UK telescope is currently being constructed at STFC’s Chilbolton Observatory in Hampshire - several of the individual telescopes are already operating, and it is expected that scientific commissioning with about half of the eventual number of telescopes will start in late summer, with the preliminary astronomical surveys commencing towards the end of this year.
The design of LOFAR is driven by four fundamental astrophysical applications: (i) to study the epoch of reionisation (when matter emerged from the ionisation dominated early universe); (ii) to make extragalactic surveys to study the formation and evolution of clusters, galaxies, and black holes; (iii) to observe transient and variable sources and their association with high energy objects such as gamma ray bursts; and (iv) to try to understand cosmic ray showers and their exploitation to study the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
The Open University is a member of the UK LOFAR Consortium, along with the Universities of Southampton, Aberystwyth, Birmingham, Sussex, Leicester, Portsmouth, Hertfordshire, Liverpool, UCL, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Queen Mary, Kent and Oxford Universities, and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. |
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Melting Rocks With Lasers
The Ar/Ar dating laboratory in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences has a range of equipment – lasers and mass spectrometers – that are used to find the ages of rocks and minerals. When a rock sample is brought back from the field, samples are prepared as either small chunks of rock or polished slabs 300 microns thick, and once they have undergone the extensive preparation procedures required, we can melt them with lasers.
Two types of laser are used – infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths. The infrared laser will make an explosive crater-shaped hole in the surface of the rock sample, whilst the ultraviolet laser ablates very precise neat holes, or can be rastered to ablate shapes on the rock surface. Either method releases gases from the melted rock, which are then sent into the mass spectrometer upon which it measures isotopes of argon. We use the ratio of two different isotopes of argon to calculate the age of the area of rock or mineral that has just been melted.
The Ar/Ar dating method is extremely versatile, it has been used to date Moon rocks, and on Earth, volcanoes, ancient earthquakes, meteorite impact craters, episodes of water or hydrocarbon flow through sedimentary rocks, as well as when mountains grew and eroded in Earth history.
To see how the lasers are used, watch Dr Sarah Sherlock explain by following the link below.
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The Ar/Ar laboratory in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences where the video was shot. |
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See Evolution At Work...At A Snail's Pace: Public Science Project Launches
Snails, often the unloved blight of gardeners, are being put under the microscope with a new public science project being launched today (Monday 30 March) by The Open University. The Evolution MegaLab is a mass public research programme which is investigating how ordinary banded snails - found in back gardens, river banks and parks - have evolved over the last 40 years, by comparing data supplied by members of the public with a database of more than 8,000 historical records.
The project runs from April to October 2009, spanning Europe, and relies on members of the public doing their own snail hunts and submitting their findings to the website at www.evolutionmegalab.org. When data is received, people will get personalised interpretations of their observations. At the end of the year the results will be analysed by a group of leading evolutionary biologists, co-ordinated by scientists from The Open University.
Scientists believe that climate change and predators may have caused the banded snail population to shift habitat and even change their appearance. CEPSAR member Professor Jonathan Silvertown explains: "Banded snails wear their genes on their backs. Their colours and banding patterns are marvelously varied - but the darker shell types are more common in woodland, where the background colour is brown, while in grass banded snails tend to be lighter-coloured, yellow and stripier. These differences are thought to have evolved over time because they provide camouflage from thrushes, which like to eat the snails."
"However, there has been a big decrease in the numbers of song thrushes in some places over the last 30 years and we'd like the public to help us to find out whether, with fewer predators about, the different snail types are less faithful to their particular habitats."
There is also a geographical pattern in the colour of shells that may have changed in response to the warming of the climate over the last 30 years. "Darker shells used to be more common in the north than in the south. We think this was because darker shells warm up more quickly in sunlight, enabling the animals to be more active in cold places. We would like to find out whether this geographical pattern has changed as the climate has warmed," said Jonathan.
Everything you need to know to start snail hunting can be found at www.evolutionmegalab.org. There are full instructions on how to do a snail hunt, a recording sheet on which to log findings, and a guide on how to identify banded snails. In addition, there is an instructional video illustrating snail hunting, a podcast on the project from Jimmy Doherty and some fun colouring sheets for younger snail hunters.
Professor Silvertown added: "The Evolution Megalab brings science to life and is a great way for families to explore evolution at work in their own garden or local park. It shows how good science can also be good fun!"
The Evolution MegaLab project is supported by The Royal Society and British Council. The project team will be exhibiting at this summer's Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in the first week of July. For more information visit: www.evolutionmegalab.org |
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Banded snails |
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CEPSAR Researchers Attend Major Climate Conference
This year is a critical one for planet Earth, with governments gearing up for a year of tough climate negotiations culminating in Copenhagen in December with the aim of replacing the Kyoto protocol.
To prepare the ground, and provide an ideal platform for communicating the latest climate impact research to policymakers, an international group of universities organised a high-profile conference in Copenhagen last week from
10-12 March, under the theme of 'Climate Change, Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions' covering a very broad spectrum of climate-related issues from understanding the risks, to opportunities for mitigation and global management.
CEPSAR research was represented by Dr Phil Holden and Dr Neil Edwards from Earth and Environmental Sciences who presented work related to the risks of ice-sheet collapse, and the potential for modelling climate-economy feedbacks. For more information on the conference follow the link below.
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Prof. John Schellnhuber of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and visiting Professor at the University of Oxford addressing the Climate Congress in Copenhagen last week.
Image: Lizette Kabré. |
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Beagle 2 Technology Features At New Science Musuem Exhibition
A cut-away section of the layered composite materials from which the Beagle 2 Mars lander base and lid was constructed is included in Fast Forward, a new exhibition at the Science Museum. Fast Forward: 20 ways F1™ is changing our world was opened yesterday by McLaren Group Chairman and CEO Ron Dennis who talked passionately about the challenge of science and technology education saying “A wide range of unrelated industries have been beneficiaries of Formula 1™ innovation – and just a few of these are represented here in this showcase of scientific application.” He went on to say that he hoped the Exhibition would “inspire the next generation of Britons to embrace science, technology and engineering to innovate and provide answers to the challenges of tomorrow”.
20 innovative by-products of Formula F1™ are displayed in an elegantly designed gallery overlooked by the chassis of the McLaren MP4-21 suspended from the ceiling. The exhibition features wide ranging spin-offs from space exploration applications to medical and life style advances.
The Beagle 2 structure was designed and built by McLaren Composites. The actual item included in the Exhibition is pictured right, being examined by Princess Anne when she visited the Beagle 2 team in 2004. A full sized model of Beagle 2 is on permanent display in the Space Gallery at the Science Museum. |
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HRH Princess Anne with Professor Colin Pillinger during a visit to the Beagle 2 facility in 2004. |
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CEPSAR Member Wins Royal Society Grant
CEPSAR's Professor Nigel Harris has recently secured a Joint International Project grant from the Royal Society to study the evolution of the eastern Himalaya with Earth scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
The grant will fund expeditions to Sikkim by CEPSAR geoscientists and reciprocal visits by Indian scientists to our geochemical laboratories at the Open University's Walton Hall campus over the next two years.
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CEPSAR scientists will travel to the Himalaya to conduct their research. |
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![Tibetan plateau [Bob Spicer]](Images/002lndrs-2.jpg)
![Mars: Layered Outcrops of Far West Candor Chasma [NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems]](Images/mars-layers.jpg)
![Mars: Sustained water flow in Nanedi Valles [NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems]](Images/Nanedi-Valles.jpg)
![Field work in Antartica [Adela Fazel]](Images/005traaf-2.jpg)
![Volcanic vent [John Murray]](Images/001lndjm-2.jpg)
![South African Astronomical Observatory [Carole Haswell]](Images/2003_0619_063619AA-2.jpg)