Dr Barbara Hassall, an astrophysicist from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, is visiting our school today.
Dr Barbara Hassall visits Lincoln
Historical First Astronomy Observation At University Of Lincoln
On the evening of 15th February Students studying physics at the University of Lincoln carried out their first observations of the night sky. This was the historical first practical astronomy session with the aim of expanding our practical element for you physics students. On the roof of the Isaac Newton Building students used a 8 inch (203mm) Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting and 4.75inch (120mm) refracting telescope to view various interesting astronomical objects. Even in the centre of Lincoln we were able to clearly observe Orion’s nebula. A deep sky object which is a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by nearby young hot blue stars that have recently formed.
The plan is to loan out some of our telescopes to allow students to make their own observations in their own time.
New top speed record for a car
Yesterday saw the historic launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket with the non-traditional payload of a Tesla Roadster. At the beginning of the week the fastest cars are:
The fastest road car – Hennessey Venom GT with a top speed of 270+mph (434 kph).
The land speed record is currently just over 760 mph (1223 kph) by ThrustSSC.
Should note that this does not include cars that may have been dropped from planes reaching terminal velocity (order of ~100 mph / 160 kph) or those that have travelled on planes (~600 mph / 965 kph).
To put object into space and escape the gravity of Earth it must first overcome the escape velocity from the surface. Essentially this occurs when an objects kinetic energy becomes equal to the gravitational potential energy. For Earth this approximates to about 11.2 km/s. (40,300 kph). However, since a rocket…
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Interview on Siren Radio
Today I visited Siren radio to talk my current interests and work as part of #itsoundslikespace produced by 2nd year media prod students. We talked a range of things from the Cassini spacecraft to what astrophysics students at Lincoln can get the opportunity to be involved with. It was great to meet with the students and be part of their show.
