3 day Astronomy school for 15-18 year olds
The annual Space School once again attracted keen young physicists aged 15-18 from all over the UK and even abroad to the University to experience all things space for a weekend from the 3rd – 5th August (view poster)
The weekend started with some excellent lectures by Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz, Dr James Urquhart and Dr Timothy Kinnear, which students said were inspiring. 36 students took part in projects run by SPS PhD students Justyn, Sam, Luke and Ricky; which got them investigating impacts from the Light Gas Gun then designing, building and testing their own spacecraft shields to withstand a simulated impact; identifying meteorites from an array of rocks and minerals using non-destructive tests and planning their own mission to collect meteorite samples; and producing light curves that are used to detect exoplanets then using spectroscopy techniques to identify the atmospheric content of their discovered exoplanet.
The students also had tour of the Beacon Observatory, which was given by the Dr Dirk Froebrich and Justyn Campbell-White. The final day on Sunday, of course, brought the much anticipated launching of rockets that the students had spent the whole weekend designing and making in teams. This year many of the egg-stronauts managed to survive the landings, and the students all enjoyed watching the rockets get as high as possible!
