The RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2008

Professor Mark Bailey - Armagh Observatory
Larmour Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Tuesday 1^st April, 19:00

2008 is the one-hundredth anniversary of the most recent significant extraterrestrial body known to have run into the Earth: the famous 30 June 1908 Tunguska Event, which devastated some 2000 square kilometres of forest in a remote part of Siberia. Since then, advances in astronomy have confirmed that the phenomenon of impacts is a key driver of planetary evolution, ranging from the cause of the largest craters and mare (or "seas") on the Moon, to the evolution of life on Earth. This has led to our modern understanding that impacts by relatively small astronomical bodies (comets, asteroids and fragments thereof) have the potential to produce occasionally catastrophic environmental changes on Earth. The objects, which range in size from typically a few tens of metres across to many kilometres in diameter, orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits that cross those of the planets and are sometimes the closest extraterrestrial objects accessible to direct observations or to visits by spacecraft. Those that cross or come close to the Earth's orbit are called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), and it is these that have the potential to collide with our Earth. This talk will review our growing understanding of the resulting extraterrestrial impact hazard and especially its implications for various aspects of civilization and for our wider understanding of mankind's and Earth's place in the Universe.

Lars Lindberg Christensen of the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility
Larmour Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Wednesday 2^nd April, 19:30

The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most successful scientific projects of all time, both in terms of its scientific output and in terms of its almost iconic public appeal. Hubble's enormous impact derives from its ability to exploit a unique scientific niche where no other instruments can really compete at the moment - consistently delivering super-sharp images and clean, uncontaminated spectra, also in the elusive infrared and ultraviolet. This has opened up new scientific territory and resulted in many paradigm-breaking discoveries. Hubble's exquisite image quality has enabled astronomers to gain entirely new insights into the workings of a huge range of different astronomical objects and provided the visual overview of underlying astrophysical processes taking place planets, stars and galaxies.

On top of all this astronomers are lucky scientists. Their telescopes do not only produce results of great scientific value, but also of eye-catching beauty and artistic potential. This talk aims to also show how Hubble has built a bridge between science and art.

This lecture is presented in association with the Irish Astronomical Association.

Professor Francis Keenan - Queen's University Belfast Astrophysics Research Centre
Larmour Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Thursday 3^rd April, 19:00

Science-fiction films and TV shows are extremely popular, with many of the top-grossing movies of all-time being science-fiction, while Star Trek (and its various spinoffs) is one of the most-watched TV series. As a result, for many people their main exposure to scientific ideas and concepts is via the medium of science-fiction films and TV. In this presentation, the accuracy (or otherwise!) of the science in science-fiction films and television programmes is discussed, and illustrated using clips from films and TV shows including Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Aliens.