SPA Meeting - Saturday 24th April 2015
John Murrell
If anyone is intending to attend the SPA meeting the main lecture has been changed as follows:
Novae – an ultra-panchromatic view
At our London meeting this Saturday, 25 April, our Vice President, Prof. Tim O'Brien, will talk about novae – exploding stars.
Several times each year a new star appears in the night sky. Dubbed novae by astronomers of the past, we now know these are explosions on white dwarfs in binary star systems which can eject around an Earth’s mass of material into space at speeds of thousands of kilometres per second. The white dwarf is not destroyed in these outbursts and the nova lives to explode again – in some cases within the lifetime of a single astronomer.
Novae are now detected right the way across the spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays. Prof. O'Brien will describe the latest observations and what they teach us about these interesting astrophysical phenomena – stellar explosions that are sometimes visible to the unaided eye from our own backyards!
This replaces the talk by Dr Lewis Dartnell previously advertised.
Following the break, Robin Scagell talks about forthcoming events in the night sky, and Dr David Mannion looks at The Future of Space Travel. Where will we go after the tremendous Apollo missions, the Mars Rover and the exploration of our Solar System by interplanetary robots? Will we have bases on the Moon and Mars by the end of the 21st Century?
The meeting takes place at SOAS, University of London, starting at 2 pm. More details, and a map of how to get there, are given on the SPA website.
Travel Advice:
Also if you are intending to come from the South by bus all the buses that go to Russell Square from Waterloo are on diversion due to the fire in Kingsway in early April. I am not sure how much longer the journey takes but on weekdays it is very slow due to congestion in the Strand. You can get out at Aldwych and walk North up Kingsway that may be quicker else go by the Underground.
Going back to Waterloo should be Ok as Kingsway is open Southbound
John Murrell
Website www.JohnMurrell.org.uk