Yesterday, the world's largest experiment - the Large Hadron Collider at Cern - was restarted after 14 months of repairs.
Full details of the LHC restart can be seen on the BBC News online (and they also have a guide to the LHC).
The University of Sussex's involvement in the Large Hadron Collider is detailed here, and the scientists involved are willing to talk to your school about it! See our outreach offerings for information.
Gamma Ray Bursts are know to be the biggest bangs since the big bang! And NASA's Swift space telescope celebrated 5 years of observing these bursts just a few days ago - it was launched on November the 20th, 2004.
And as with most space telescopes, British astronomers play a key role.
Scientists at the University of Leicester designed the X-ray telescope on-board, built the X-ray camera's, and continue to calibrate and monitor its health. Leicester also hosts the UK Swift Science Data Centre. The Mullard Space Science Laboratory, part of the University College London, helped build the Ultra-violet and optical telescope.
UK scientists at both Leicester and MSSL are also on call throughout the day and night for when a burst goes off, to assess whether to follow up the observation with larger ground-based telescopes. Such decisions need to be made within minutes. A full list of UK-based scientists involved in the Swift Space Telescope can be found here on Swift's UK website.
The key thing about Swift is that it is, well, swift! Swift can detect a burst of gamma-rays occurring in about a quarter of the entire sky, and then automatically and rapidly (within 30 seconds!) turn around to scrutinise the rapidly fading explosion with its other on-board telescopes (the X-ray and optical telescopes).
There are two types of gamma-ray bursts - short bursts that last on average about 0.3 seconds, and the long bursts that on-average last about 30 seconds.
Before Swift, scientists knew very little about the short bursts (for obvious reasons... they happened too quickly!), and Swift was the first telescope to discover where these quick explosions were coming from. While scientists are still unsure as to what causes them, the leading idea is that they originate from the mergers of binary neutron stars.
The longer bursts are usually seen to occur with a supernova, which unambiguously links long bursts to the deaths of massive stars... although, strangely, some relatively nearby long bursts appear to have no accompanying supernova. As is often the case in science, when one mystery is solved, another appears!
And because these burst of gamma-rays are the biggest explosions known to man, we can see very distant bursts. The most distant object known, the red object pictured here, is a Gamma-ray burst seen by Swift (see this BBC News story).
On Tuesday, the Leonid meteor shower peaks, so go outside and enjoy the darkness over the next few days, as the Earth drives through the debris left behind by comet Tempel-Tuttle!
The Leonid meteor shower is more unpredictable than most. On some years, intense storms of meteors have been seen. In 1833, it is predicted that over 100,000 meteors were seen per hour! While we don't expect anywhere near that number this year, and we expect the shower to be best seen from Australia, meteor showers are notoriously unpredictable, so they are always worth a look.
More details can be seen on the Wikipedia.
The sun is setting at around 5pm during November, so here is how to enjoy the long winter nights!
The highlight of the evening sky is the planet Jupiter, visible low in the south to south-west up until 10.30pm in the evening. Take a look at Jupiter with binoculars, or a small telescope, and see how many of Jupiter's Moons you can spot – just as Galileo did 400 years ago. You should be able to see up to four moons, and if you take another look just a few hours later, you may be able to notice that the moons have moved a bit in just that very short period of time.
The planets Uranus and Neptune are also visible in the evening sky, but they are just-too-faint to be seen with the unaided eye, which is why these two planets were not discovered until after the invention of the telescope.
Early in the evening, looking towards the west, you can still see the summer triangle of stars – Vega, Altair and Deneb – until about 9pm (see the chart to the right; click on it to see it full size). Within the triangle, you can see the remains of two dead stars using a telescope – the ring and dumbbell nebulae. There is also a beautiful double star called Albireo within the triangle.
This is also a great time of year to see the Andromeda galaxy – the most distant object that you can see with your own eyes! It may be 2.25 million light-years away, but it is quite easy to find. Just go somewhere dark, away from the light pollution and inefficient lighting of our towns and cities, and look for the square of Pegasus. The square can be found by looking towards the South, about half way up the sky. It’s quite a big square – just bigger than your hand at arms length. Look towards the star that makes the top-left corner of the square, then follow two bright-ish stars up towards the top left, and then follow two more slightly fainter stars towards the top right (as in the map, right), and just there is the Andromeda galaxy! The W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia also usefully “points” towards the galaxy.
And it is huge! It is actually six times the diameter of the full Moon, but it appears faint because it is so far away, and so with our own eyes we can only see the bright centre of this massive city-of-stars. For the best view, take a look through binoculars (telescopes usually have too high a magnification for you to see this galaxy clearly).
Now look to the left of the square of Pegasus, about 4 times its size, and you will see a bright red giant star called Aldebaran. Just to the top-right of Aldebaran, you’ll be able to see the Pleiades star cluster, also know as the seven sisters because you can see up to seven stars with your own eyes (pictured left as a wide-angle view, and right as a close-up photograph). This cluster is a beautiful sight through binoculars, where you can see up to 50 stars. Again, don’t use a telescope, since you will only be able to see one or two stars at a time – low magnification is what you need for a cluster that appears bigger than the Moon in the night sky.
You can get some very easy-to-use and clear star maps from either skymaps.com, or by using the excellent (and free) Stellarium Planetarium software.