Archive for April, 2011

Return to the Vinter Room

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

That’s not the title of a movie sequel, but the news that we will be returning to the newly re-furbished Vinter Room for our May meeting!

Many thanks to Kevin and Bonita Ward at the Conservatory for their hospitality over the last few months.

The Astronomy Show, 2011

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

The 2011 Astronomy Show is being held on Saturday April 23rd, at Hastingwood Industrial and Business Park, Birmingham.

The aim of the show is to cater for the requirements of astronomers at all levels, from novice to the ardent star gazer, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere and hopefully provide something for everyone. There are some fantastic speakers lined up, together with a trade exhibition and displays from other organisations.

It is hoped that this will grow to become an annual event in the astronomy calendar, with plans to expand the event into an even more comprehensive show running over 2 days in 2012.

For more information, visit the Astronomy Show website at;

http://www.theastronomyshow.eu/

Dr Nick Achilleos – “The Cassini mission, investigating the magnetosphere of Saturn”

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Nick is a scientist at the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory at University College London and kindly spared us the time to come up to talk to us about magnetic fields surrounding Saturn and Jupiter. These giant planets rotate very rapidly for their size and also contain a highly compressed form of hydrogen at their core which is essentially metallic. This means that a magnetic field is generated that extends away from the planet to form a magnetosphere. The intensity of this field is 550 and 18,000 times that of the earth for Saturn and Jupiter respectively, even though the field is still very weak (measured in microTeslas).

The work that Nick described was aimed at understanding how the magnetosphere is kept in place and what influences act upon it. In the case of the latter, certain satellites like Enceladus (Saturn) or Io (Jupiter) have physical characteristics that contribute charged particles to their planet’s magnetospheres. The forces that form the magnetosphere are a balance between the pressure of the solar wind that streams over all the planets and the magnetic field of the planet itself. These forces were explained (fairly gently) in mathematical terms, along with analyses of magnetometer data from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. These measurements are freely available from NASA one year after original capture and are used by any group wishing to study planetary physics.

You can find more information about Nick’s work at his UCL homepage (http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapnac) which includes a more detailed description of the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter;
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapnac/lectures/psmp_lec4.pdf