Old News From 2013 For The Royal Observatory
Higgs Centre for Innovation
05 December 2013
A new Higgs Centre for Innovation announced today (5 December 2013) aims to create new market opportunities whilst also inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The Centre will be built at STFC’s UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC). It will focus on business incubation and start-up business support, by exploiting UK ATC and academic instrumentation and big data capabilities for commercial use. Working in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, the Centre will house up to 12 small businesses, as well as academic and PhD posts, to provide PhD students the opportunity to gain entrepreneurial experience as they start their research careers.
ROE
to host visit by Commander Chris Hadfield
15th November 2013
The Royal Observatory Edinburgh is delighted to be hosting Commander Chris Hadfield on the Scottish leg of his book launch tour. Commander Hadfield will give a talk and then be signing copies of his book.
The talk "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" will be on the Wednesday evening the 18th of December from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
This is a free ticketed event with a ‘No ticket, no entry’ policy due to limited space on site.
No advance reservations are being taken for this event. Tickets are only available on a "first come first served basis" via the Eventbright ticket reservation page.
Ministers
view Extremely Large Telescope work
11 November 2013
Alistair Carmichael MP, the Secretary of State for Scotland, visited the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC) with David Willetts MP, Minister for Universities and Science, on 11th November 2013.
The highlight of the Ministers’ tour was the Crawford Laboratory, for which £0.5 million has been awarded to upgrade it for work on the large, high-precision instruments needed for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
Work
starts on the world’s largest radio telescope
4th November 2013
Work starts this week (4 November 2013) on the next phase of development for what will soon be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Project. The latest stage of the project will see the UK taking a major role in contributing to the overall final design of the world’s largest radio telescope. The SKA will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe by detecting radio waves with unprecedented sensitivity and image fidelity, helping answer key questions in astrophysics and astronomy, such as the role of dark energy and dark matter in our Universe, and possibly even one of mankind’s biggest questions: are we alone?
New
Earth-sized exoplanet that ‘shouldn’t exist’ baffles
astronomers
30 October 2013
Astronomers have for the first time weighed an Earth-sized planet orbiting another star. Although measuring the radius of exoplanets is relatively straightforward, measuring the planet's mass - and therefore its density, a clue to its composition - is more difficult. The results from two independent teams published in Nature (30 October 2013), one of which included a number of UK astronomers, confirm Kepler-78b as the first known Earth-sized exoplanet with an Earth-like density.
The results are baffling astronomers because Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn’t exist. This scorching world circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one million miles – one of the tightest known orbits. According to current theories of planet formation, it couldn’t have formed so close to its star, nor could it have moved there.
Astronomers
talk climate change and biodiversity in pioneering project
30th October 2013
Astronomers are putting their telescopes aside this week (30-31 October) to look at climate change and biodiversity as they come together with tropical forest researchers to look at how tropical forest changes affect global warming and species distribution.
Edinburgh University Press Release, University of Leeds Press Release
Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert
8th October 2013
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2013 to Peter W. Higgs, University of Edinburgh,UK and François Englert, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Edinburgh University Press Release, UK Prime Minister's Office Statement, STFC Media Release
Our Universe May Not Be Flat
4th October 2013
IfA cosmologists Andrew Liddle and Marina Cortês put forward a proposal that explains the lopsidedness of the Universe - the fact that the perturbations in matter and energy are stronger in one side of the sky than on the other - by positing that our universe is slightly negatively curved, or shaped like a saddle. In this theory our universe originated as a bubble surrounded by higher energy space. The difference in energies provides a curvature scale, which in turn gives rise to the asymmetry we observe in the sky.
NIRSpec
on its way to NASA where it will join MIRI in tests next year
6 September 2013
ESA has completed the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), one of two instruments it is contributing to the international James Webb Space Telescope. NIRSpec is designed to detect the light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the young Universe, roughly 400 million years after the Big Bang.
The delivery of the Mid-Infrared camera and spectrograph (MIRI) to NASA last year and now NIRSpec demonstrates how European engineers and scientists are playing a key role in this important international mission.
Open
Days weekend at the Royal Observatory
28th & 29th of September 2013
We open our doors this year over the weekend of the 28th and 29th of September 2013. Our theme this year is "Galaxies". Come to our Open Days to see demonstrations and exhibits about galaxies and the secret that lies at the centre of each one, even our own.
Intergalactic magnifying glasses could help astronomers map galaxy centres.
1st July 2013
An international team of astronomers may have found a new way to map quasars,
the energetic and luminous central regions often found in distant galaxies.
Team leader Prof. Andy Lawrence of the University of Edinburgh presents the
new results on Monday 1 July at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in St
Andrews, Scotland.
SPA Diamond Jubilee - Free Event
15th June 2013
The UK's leading organisation for beginners to stargazing, the Society for Popular Astronomy, is celebrating its 60th year. A Diamond Jubilee meeting at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh is being held on Saturday the 15th of June. A spectacular day of talks has been lined up which are free and open to all (ticket required).
Bomb
Attack at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh
20 May 2013
A hundred years ago this week, on the night of the 21st of May 1913, the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh was bombed. The attack was part of a wider militant suffragettes’ campaign seeking rights for women that targeted Government institutions and other representations of ‘the establishment’.
UKATC Engineers spark NASA Engineer's Curiosity
19th April 2013
On Friday 19th April Nagin Cox, a senior engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, visited the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and was treated to a whistle-stop tour of some of the work carried out by the UKATC. Ms Cox, who works on the NASA Mars Science Laboratory rover 'Curiosity', is in the UK as part of a 3 country speaking tour whilst Mars is in conjunction (behind or close to) the Sun and work with Curiosity is not possible because radio communications are disrupted.
Huge Map of the Distant Universe Reaches Halfway Point - VLT survey charts positions of 55 000 galaxies
12th March 2013
The largest project ever undertaken to map out the Universe in three-dimensions using ESO telescopes has reached the halfway stage. An international team of astronomers, including members of the University of Edinburgh, has used the VIMOS instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope to measure the distances to 55 000 galaxies as part of the VIPERS survey. This has already allowed them to create a remarkable three-dimensional view of how galaxies were distributed in space in the younger Universe. This reveals the complex web of the large-scale structure of the Universe in great detail.
UK invests £88 million in world's largest ever optical telescope
4th March 2013
The UK research base and industry will play a leading role in one of the biggest global science collaborations in history, after the UK government confirmed long-term investment in the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) to be built in Chile.
The E-ELT will make huge strides toward our understanding of the Universe, the effects of dark matter and energy and planets outside of the solar system. Its 39 metres in diameter mirror will collect 15 times more light than any existing telescope and it will produce images 16 times sharper than the Hubble space-based telescope.
£1.7M
grant to fill major gaps in our understanding of human diseases
20 February 2013
A new UK endeavour that will focus on gaining a much better understanding of major human diseases, like cancer and other medical concerns such as deafness and ageing, is to be undertaken by an STFC-MRC consortium, thanks to a £1.7M grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC).
The UK ATC is part of the consortium aiding in the development of adaptive optics for biomedical imaging. This technology was originally designed for use in astronomy research, and although the optics have been adapted for medical use, the underlying technology remains the same.
Where
and when to look for asteroid 2012DA14
15th February2013
Asteroid 2012DA14 will pass by Earth tonight, and if the sky is clear and you have a reasonably dark sky, you should be able to see it with a pair of binoculars. It is due to pop over the horizon in the ENE shortly before 2000 this evening (viewed from the Edinburgh area), will pass through the Plough about 2130 and continue on roughly towards the Pole Star.
More detailed skychart
VISTA:
a celebration - Workshop
17th - 18th January 2013
VISTA is delivering fabulous survey science to the European community and this is due to the hard work of those involved in delivering the project and the key leadership of the science surveys in the UK. VISTA was a challenging project to deliver and this meeting is in three-parts: to review the complexity of the novel design and the history of the project itself; the science data taking and the results of the current surveys; plans for future surveys using VISTA.
Dark
Sky Discovery sites in the UK hit the big 50 as Stargazing LIVE gets
underway
8th Jan 2013
The Dark Sky Discovery (DSD) network is today unveiling six new Dark Sky Discovery Sites on the day that BBC Two’s Stargazing LIVE gets underway. Dark Sky Discovery Sites are areas identified by the public as safe, accessible viewing spots where it is dark enough to view stars in the night sky.