Kent Physics Centre
Evening talks on physics open to the public.
Talks are Tuesday evenings at 7pm in SIBSON Lecture Theatre 3 and will run about once a month.
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Upcoming Talks
Tuesday 3rd June 2025
Mark Burchell (Emeritus, University of Kent)
Exploring the Solar System via Hypervelocity Impacts
From impacts with dust and debris in Low Earth Orbit, to collecting dust whilst flying past comets and planetary moons, hypervelocity impacts (those roughly in excess of 1 km per second) are a key process to sampling materials across the Solar System. The high speeds arise due to the relative orbital motions of the bodies involved, and the natural speed scale is in km’s per second. Such impacts are also naturally occurring events, with bodies from space impacting planetary atmospheres and surfaces providing information on the past (the craters) and the present (observations of impacts in real-time).
A guide to impacts, their outcomes, and the opportunities and risks they provide, will be given.
You can see our full schedule of talks for the 2024-2025 academic year here.