Sussex physicists named science Student and Lecturer of the Year

Sussex physics graduate Debbie Hill has been named best overall student of the year, and lecturer Dr Mike Hardiman has been named best lecturer of the year, in the 2009 Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) awards. Debbie also won the National Physical Laboratory Award for the Best Physics Student.

Mike leads the outreach efforts here at the University of Sussex's Department of Physics & Astronomy, while Debbie is equally enthusiastic, having recently spent a day helping a group of 15 year olds build their own cloud chambers, allowing the students to see cloud tracks created by otherwise invisible radiation.

Mike and Debbie both carry out research on the neutron-EDM experiment, part of a major physics experiment in Grenoble, France. The nEDM experiment ultimately aims to answer the question of why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, by finding if a small asymmetry exists within the neutron itself.

More details at the University of Sussex news page.

Water, water, everywhere...?

We believe that water is one of the key ingredients for life, and this is often discussed in schools, and so it have been interesting to hear the reports of water on the Moon and Mars over the last few days.

Last week, the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter discovered that areas of the lunar surface are slightly damp... slightly meaning that the Moon is still dryer than the driest of Earth's deserts! But there is water present. Full details of that can be found on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

Orbiting Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered 100 fresh meteor impact craters. On Earth, most meteors burn up in our atmosphere, and do not reach the ground. But the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than ours, allowing far more meteors to hit the surface. And when a crater is formed, you can see what is just beneath the martian surface... and it appears to be ice. More details of this story at the NASA-Science website, and on the BBC News.

This also implies that had the robotic arm on NASA's Viking 2 (which landed on Mars back in 1976) been just 10 cm longer, it might have struck ice!

Autumnal Equinox

The Earth is tilted by 23.5°, and at 21:18 GMT on September the 22nd, this tilt will be neither towards or away from the Sun. The north pole of the Earth is tilted in the same direction - towards the star Polaris - throughout the year (although this will change slightly over thousands of years). But bfore 21:18 GMT on September the 22nd, the north pole of the Earth was pointed slightly towards the Sun (which is why we had summer in the northern hemisphere), and after that moment, the north pole of the Earth will be tilted slightly away from the Sun, which is why we have autumn beginning in the northern hemisphere.

This means that on this day we have - to within minutes - an even length of day and night. The name "equinox" originates from Latin words for equal (aequus) and night (nox).

The date of the equinox varies each year because the Earth orbits the Sun in 365.2422 days, and not 365 days exactly! This is also why we have a leap-day every four years, allowing our calendars to catch up with the orbit of the Earth.

More information about the equinoxes can be found on the Wikipedia.