Star Gazing Season

It’s Star Gazing season again with the BBC, so why not join in with yourself and your students? See the BBC website for full details about their programming.

For school and college groups, we have star parties available throughout the winter – see our calendar for available dates!

We will also be helping out with the East Sussex Astronomical Society at the De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea on Friday 20th January – more details are available at this website.

And we will also be star gazing at the Moulsecoomb Forest Garden on Sunday 29th January – more details of that event are available online!

Upcoming Physics talks at the University of Sussex

We have two great public talks coming up, as part of the Institute of Physics South-Central branch activities. They are...

On Tuesday, 12th October 2010, Prof. Roger Barlow (University of Manchester) will be showing "How accelerators can save the planet" Starting at 7pm, in the Arts A lecture theater. [download PDF poster]

And on Tuesday, 23rd November 2010, Prof. Steve Biller (University of Oxford) will talking about "The strange case of the particle that almost wasn't there." Starting at 7pm, Lecture theater A of the Fulton building. [download PDF poster]

Full details of how to get to the venue can be found here.

Public talk: Fusion Power - the era of burning plasmas

Speaker: Professor Steven Cowley, Director of Culham Laboratory.

Date & Time: 7pm, Tuesday 4th of May, 2010

Location: Pevensey 1, theatre 1A7, University of Sussex

In a decade, the international fusion experiment ITER will start operating in the south of France. This historic experiment will generate up to 500 megawatts of fusion power and provide a proof of principle for fusion energy. Fusion has the potential to provide a large fraction of our energy for millions of years. In this talk, Steven will describe the scientific progress in fusion, from Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington's prophetic predictions in 1920 to the remarkable results that have lead to ITER, and the challenging problems that must be solved to make fusion power a commercial option.

Travel: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/findus

Contact:s.j.m.peeters@sussex.ac.uk or 01273 678128

The Large Hadron Collider restarts

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.

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.

Outreach Launch Party

On the 14th of July, 2009, over 50 teachers from around the region came to visit the University of Sussex, to see the launch of outreach offerings from the department of Physics & Astronomy.

Activities included:

• a tour of the research facilities
• demonstrations of hands-on workshops for schools kids
• watching radiation passing through cloud chambers
• GCSE revision experiments
• our new roof-top robotic observatory
• solar telescope demonstrations
• plus the chance to talk to members of the department, both staff and students

The event was a tremendous success, and everyone enjoyed themselves! We also got lots of valuable feedback from visitors, and ideas to put into our program for next year.

We'd like to thanks all those who made the effort to come and visit, and we really value your thoughts and ideas. And we look forward to seeing you all again at some point in the future, either here on campus, or at your school.

Under-graduate students Nick and Darren (left), and lecturer Jon Loveday (right), all from the Physics & Astronomy department of the University of Sussex, show off the selection of telescopes available for visiting schools to use.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Physics & Astronomy Outreach blog, here at the University of Sussex!

This blog will contain...

• Previews & reminders of up-and-coming events
• Reviews of past events
• Latest news in Physics & Astronomy - with special relevance to teaching, and the University of Sussex.

We hope you will enjoy reading the blog, and if you do have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know at physicsoutreach@sussex.ac.uk