Category: Science this week

Right now, in a control room in Darmstadt, Germany, scientists are waiting to hear from the European Space Agency‘s Rosetta mission.  Rosetta was launched in 2004 from French Guyana, and ever since has been flying on a gravity-assisted course towards the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which it will orbit and photograph over the next two years, with the mission scheduled to end in December 2015.  Before that, this November, a probe called Philae will be launched towards the surface of the comet.
Hopefully the Rosetta mission will tell us a lot more about how comets form and behave, and perhaps even help answer questions about what happens with Comet ISON last year.
SpaceflightNow.com are providing live updates about the Rosetta mission as we speak – visit http://spaceflightnow.com/rosetta/status.html for more information.
Back in the North East
Back in the North East, the Stargazing Live events are now growing to a halt.  As you may have seen later in the week, the Mallard Days Radioactivity Workshops are now open for booking, please click the link above to find out more.
Finally, on the internet this week…
This week, I have two videos to share.  The first is from TED, and features some of the latest research on human-robot interaction.

Secondly, and primarily for my A-level Physics, Astronomy and Optics students: here is a derivation of the thin lens equation by Doc Schuster on Youtube.  This is part of a series of videos on geometrical optics, all of which make fascinating watching. (NOTE: Both AQA and OCR use a different sign convention to the one used in the video, however this does not affect any of the results!)

Science in the North-East this week is headed up on Thursday by the Institute of Physics North East Branch’s annual Gareth Roberts Memorial Lecture, held at Newcastle University in memory of the branch’s former Secretary. This year’s talk is by Dr. Marialuisa Aliotta from Edinburgh University, whose talk “A journey through stellar lives” will ask questions such as “Where do elements come from?”, “How and where were they created?” and “Why do some stars explode while others die away almost unnoticed?” This talk will be fantastic for people of all ages who have an interest in the stars, the night sky, and the Universe.
The second half of this week also contains the opening of signups to my annual “Radioactivity” workshop. More details about this will be in a separate post, however it will be held in Durham on Saturday, 1 March 2014. Three groups (one focusing on A-level work, one on the requirements for GCSE, and a final “general interest” group) will examine what radiation actually is, how it behaves and what it can be used for, before seeing some radioactive sources in action first-hand. The sessions are all very enjoyable, and should provide a real insight into radioactivity.
Also, for people who missed them last week, or are eager for more, there are a few more Stargazing Live activities in our region:

Skylights, Wynyard Planetarium, Friday
Stargazing at Saltholme, Saturday FULLY BOOKED
Rosetta Space Night, Centre for Life, Monday

And finally, I was looking on the internet this week, and I found this:
Thanks to MinutePhysics, we have a lovely explanation of why Euler’s Paradox isn’t a paradox at all – really useful for A2 students around this time! (source)