Our new sseason opened on 14th September with a public lecture by Frances McCarthy on the universe at the largest scales — so aptly descried by Douglas Adams in a A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:   “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

Main image: Galaxy filaments are the largest known structures in the universe, consisting of walls of galactic superclusters. (Computer simulation – credit Andrew Pontzen, Fabio Governato, Hiranya Peiris)

Frances McCarthy (small image below) formerly of Blackrock Castle Observatory, has been facinated with the largest scales of the universe since she did a literature survey of the topic in 1987 for her undergraduate degree.  In this lecture she reviewed our current understanding of space at the largest scales.

Where and when:  All our public lectures are in UCC’s Ashley Cummins building (formerly known as Civil Engineering, near College Road entrance to the main campus).   8 pm, second Monday of the month.   For UCC map go to Calendar