The STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory will host this year's public stargazing event online with fascinating space talks and a planetarium show designed for ages 8+. You will meet space scientists and engineers from RAL Space and hear about their exciting projects working on some of the world's biggest telescopes. Our live planetarium show will highlight what to look out for in the February night sky and we will be joined by our friends from Newbury Astronomical Society, who will share tips and answer your questions about stargazing from home.
Book tickets on Eventbrite.
The event is free to attend and it will be recorded, you can request the recording when booking tickets.
If you are unable to attend live, you can still submit questions in advance for our speakers to answer on the night. To submit questions or for any other queries, please email visitral@stfc.ac.uk.
There are space and STEM educational resources available on-demand including posters, activity books suitable for ages 5+, videos and recordings from previous events.
Programme
17:30
| Welcome
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17:35
| What’s up? – a forward look at what you can see in the night sky with the Newbury Astronomical Society
Live-streamed observing (fingers crossed for clear skies)
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17:55
| Break |
18:00
| Planetarium show
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18:25
| Break
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18:30
| The Square Kilometre Array: building the world's largest radio telescope
The SKA is an international collaboration to build the largest radio telescope of the world, which will provide state-of-the-art, never-before-seen data about the universe. It will consist of two telescopes operating at different frequency ranges: SKA Low will be in Western Australia, while SKA Mid will be hosted by South Africa. The aim is to solve some of the biggest questions of astronomy, including “how do black holes form?”, “what is dark energy?”, and “are we alone in the universe?”
In this talk, I will show you the SKA journey that will lead to an engineering and scientific masterpiece. I will introduce you to some of the science aims, where the SKA is now and what it means to work on the software critical for the mission to operate.
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18:55
| Break
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19:00
| Studying space at the Diamond Light Source |
19:25
| Break
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19:30
| Tour of RAL Space: see inside the facilities where we assemble and test spacecraft
Joe Shreeves, Mechanical Engineer, RAL Space
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19:45
| End
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Please note the programme may be subject to change.
