Public Lectures

Our Club welcomed Dr Amanda Hendrix of the Planetary Science Institute, who spoke to us from Colorado to make the case that planetary protection rules can be relaxed.    Not all were convinced however.    Planetary protection deals with trying to prevent terrestrial microorganisms establishing a foothold on other worlds and vice versa. The primary goal is to protect the viability of… “read more”

Cork Astronomy Club welcomed Dr Julian Onions of Nottingham University’s outreach team.   He desribed his talk thus: “What are galaxies, how are they classified, how are they formed, what do we understand about their lives, and how many pretty pictures can I fit in one talk?”          Dr Julian Onions If a marble at Nottingham in central England represented the… “read more”

Cork Astronomy Club was honoured to welcome Dr Ann-Marie Madigan,    Assistant Professor of Astrophysics at University of Colorado, Boulder. There’s something odd going on in our solar system, and presence of a new planet (‘planet 9′) or a black hole have been proposed to account for it, but Dr Madigan has other ideas.         Prof Madigan’s favoured explanation is… “read more”

Cork Astronomy Club welcomed Cork-based electronics engineer Cillian O’Driscoll who drew on his work with ESA on the Galileo project, Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, to review how satellites have changed the way we navigate the globe.   The lecture was held via Zoom. Fantastic talk from someone who clearly is a master of his subject, was the verdict of… “read more”

How big in the universe and how do we know? To open our 2021-22 season of public lectures, Cork Astronomy Club welcomed Dr Robin Catchpole of the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy. He talked to us via Zoom. The title of his lecture was “Taking the Measure of Our Universe”. Two thousand years after the ancient Greeks thought of the idea,… “read more”

Due to the Covid-19 public health emergency, all public lectures except for the last two in this schedule were by Zoom. Mon 13th Sept 2021   “Taking the Measure of Our Universe” ─  Dr Robin Catchpole, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. Remote lecture Mon 11th Oct 2021   ─ electronics engineer Cillian O’Driscoll on “How satellites revolutionised how we navigate – and tell… “read more”

For our final lockdown lecture of the current season, Cork Astronomy Club welcomed Society for the History of Astronomy Chairman Gerard Gilligan to tell us about William Lassell, the Liverpool brewer and amateur astronomer who in 1846, using his own self built telescope, discovered Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune itself.  This public lecture was held… “read more”

Calendars, clocks, and how the measurement of time links to the Earth and the solar system were Prof Malone’s theme when he joined us by Zoom from Maynooth University.  He called his talk “How to tell the time” and time was the one thing lacking, the question session lasting 25 minutes after the meeting was meant to close. David Malone… “read more”

Amanda Bauer, Head of Education and Public Outreach at Vera C Rubin Observatory, joined us by Zoom from Tucson Arizona to tell us about a sizeable telescope due to commence operations in Chile at the end of 2022 which will open a bigger window on the universe and allow citizen scientists to download an app and contribute to analysing data.… “read more”

Launched in 1977 the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Each is three times farther away from the Earth and Sun than Pluto is, and travelling at 10 miles a second. In 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between stars.  Incredibly, these spacecraft are still… “read more”