Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation

2014 ICG Graduands

By

Congratulations to all our 2014 graduates. Jon Emery, Taichi Kidani and Hana Schumacher attended the University of Portsmouth graduation ceremony in the Guildhall to receive their Doctor of Philosophy awards from the university Vice-Chancellor, Prof Graham Galbraith, resplendent in their red, purple and silver gowns. The university graduation ceremonies have brought several thousand graduates, friends and families to the city over the last ten days to celebrate their success in glorious sunshine.

ICG PhD graduates 2015 reduced

In total six ICG PhD students were successfully awarded PhDs in the past year, including Tim Clemson, Guido Pettinari and Fulvio Sbisa.

 

 

Ogden Trust Schools Physicist of the Year 2013/14

By

Last week eleven promising year 9 and year 12 physics students were named ‘Portsmouth Schools Physicist of the Year’ for 2013/14 in an awards ceremony at the University of Portsmouth. The students were nominated by their teachers for their hard work, contributions in class and progress made in physics over the school year.

The award-winning students along with their families and teachers were invited to attend a special awards event on Wednesday 9th July where they were presented with a certificate and £25 book token by Professor David Wands, director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, and Dr David Franklin, Associate Dean (Students) for the Faculty of Science. Professor Wands also gave an inspirational talk on his path to becoming a cosmologist and some of the big questions about the Universe that researchers are trying to answer at the ICG. Attendees also had the chance to mingle with ICG members over light refreshments and find out more about physics at the University of Portsmouth.

SPOTY 2013/14 winners

The 2013/14 Portsmouth Schools Physicist of the Year award winners with Professor David Wands, Dr Karen Masters and Dr Jen Gupta from the ICG.

The Schools Physicist of the Year (SPOTY) awards is a nationwide initiative sponsored by The Ogden Trust, with additional support from the South East Physics Network (SEPnet) for the Portsmouth awards. It was organised by Dr Jen Gupta, the SEPnet/Ogden Outreach Officer for the ICG, with help from the university’s Education Liaison and Outreach Team. Nominations for next year’s SPOTY awards are expected to open in May 2015.

The 2013/14 Portsmouth Schools Physicist of the Year award winners were:

Year 9

Molly Allsop-Smith (Horndean Technology College)
Emily Bower (Portsmouth High School)
Louis Greaves (The Portsmouth Grammar School)
Matthew King (Cowplain Community School)
Daniel Macedo (Mayfield School)
Will Udy (Oaklands Catholic School)

Year 12

Jack Bradley (The Arnewood School)
Kirin Gallop (Portsmouth High School)
Oliver Harris (Oaklands Catholic School)
Lewis Sudbury (Portsmouth College)
Alex Todd (The Portsmouth Grammar School)

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Expands Its Reach

By

Building on 14 years of extraordinary discoveries, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) today officially launched a major program of three new surveys, adding novel capabilities to expand its census of the Universe into regions it had been unable to explore before.

eBOSS_small

Image credit: SDSS collaboration and Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital, Inc.
NASA/WMAP Science Team

 

Read the press release announcing the exciting new development on the New SDSS Website.

Staff at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation involved in this new phase of SDSS include Institute Director, Professor Bob Nichol, Professor of Astrophysics, Claudia Maraston, Professor of Cosmology, Will Percival, Reader in Astrophysics, Dr Daniel Thomas and Senior Lecturer Dr Karen Masters.

Image converted using ifftoany

Image Credit: David Law, SDSS collaboration, and Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital, Inc.
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

The University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation continues to be the only full UK member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which among the more than 200 astronomers at more than 40 institutions on four continents now also has a UK Participation Group consisting of individuals from the Universities of Cambridge, Liverpool John Moores, Nottingham and Oxford.

The press release was accompanied by this wonderful video showcasing a night of observing at the SDSS 2.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico.

Students visit ICG

By

Five  high school students spent the first week of July to do a work internship at ICG.  Welcomed by the usual friendly atmosphere of our institute, they made their  first scientific  research experience, working in the same way as our local PhD students. They did projects with ICG supervisors, took part to special  seminars tailored for them, and even attended a scientific conference. Finally, they provided the  biscuits  for our institute’s Friday cake. At the end, some of them were so happy to say that this experience at ICG convinced them to undertake  a scientific career in the future!
DSC_0057-3
The picture  shows the visiting students with some of their ICG supervisors, in the terrace of our institute.

ICG Team Wins NAM 2014 Football Tournament

By

 

NAM_230614_397_small

‘ICG Cosmos’ has won this years National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) Football Tournament during a evening of action and excitement this week. ICG took part as hosts along with 7 other teams (representing 10 astronomy departments in total) on Monday at HMS Temeraire as part of a packed NAM social programme.

NAM_230614_537_small

The tournament was split into two groups of four teams, the top 2 teams in each group then progressed to the knockout stages. ICG got off to a cosmic start with a 5-0 win over Team Glasgow, only to come back down to earth with a tough 0-0 draw against MSSL. In the final group game, ICG Cosmos faced top of the table HertOx (a combined Hertfordshire-Oxford team), with a table-topping finish to the group stage at stake. Team captain, Mat Pieri, sealed the result deep into the 2nd half, with a post-rattling strike low to the keeper’s right.

NAM_230614_685_small

ICG Director and team talisman, David Wands, did his duty and took an unfortunate HertOx player to hospital with a shoulder injury following an awkward fall. Thankfully this injury was not as serious as feared and he was back the following day to give a talk at NAM.

NAM_230614_587_small

The team struggled on without its talisman, through the next game. The semi-final was a local derby against University of Southampton rivals ‘Rickie NAMbert’. Accumulated injuries and cramp had set-in and the walking wounded were forced to continue as ICG Cosmos clung on into extra time.  Then the cavalry arrived in the shape of the returning David Wands, shoring up the defence and helping ICG make it to penalties. IT support guru and goal keeper supreme Arron Knight night made the key shoot-out save to send ICG Cosmos into the final.

NAM_230614_473_small

Night had drawn-in for this gruelling final game. ICG Cosmos faced Edinham, a combined team from the two most successful teams in NAM football history – Edinburgh and Durham! ICG took the lead through a powerful drive from new PhD student Dan Goddard. However, in the dying minutes of normal time Andrew Liddle of Edinburgh equalised leading to a nail-biting finish. There was still time for one final  effort from the ICG, as a shot from the captain whistled past the top corner.

NAM_230614_571_small

And so the tournament would be decided by a penalty shoot-out. Arron Knight put ICG in an excellent position with two fine saves leaving ICG need just one goal to seal the tournament. Edinham responded with a spectacular save of their own from an unnamed team captain. However, David Wands stepped up to slot home coolly, bringing the NAM Football Cup to the University of Portsmouth for the first time.

It was an exciting end to competitive, closely-matched, and above all sportsmanlike tournament.

10440636_10202795615395768_7978750144478158339_n_small

DSC_0895_small

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV takes off!

By

The Executive Committee of the international collaboration SDSS-IV (http://www.sdss3.org/future/), directed by Mike Blanton (NYU) and comprising eight international members including Claudia Maraston from the ICG, reached the goal to achieve the required funding to start the SDSS-IV mission. The Exec met every week since November 2013 to discuss and push several agreements with different institutions around the world. Critical to the achievement of this goal was the MOU signed with the Carnegie Observatory (Pasadena) to gain observing time at the Las Campanas observatory and host the new southern spectrograph for APOGEE-II. This project will finally look through the Bulge of our Galaxy the Milky Way directly from the southern hemisphere. The Apogee II is kindly funded by the Sloan Foundation. The ICG is full member of SDSS-IV and ICG researchers hold several leading roles in the mission. Claudia Maraston is member of the Executive Committee and Advisory Council, Karen Masters is chair of Education and Public Engagement, Bob Nichol is member of MaNGA advisory committee, Will Percival is eBOSS Survey Scientist, Daniel Thomas is MaNGA Science Team Chair.

Now we are ready to dive into new exciting discoveries for the next six years!

A Physics Teacher’s View of Visiting ICG

By

For size weeks this summer (Monday June 2nd-Friday July 11th), ICG is playing host to Physics Teacher, Mr Jeremy Thomas from Portsmouth Grammar School. While he his here Mr Thomas will help review the ICG outreach activities, participate in some events which are happening during this time, and will also work on his own research project.

On his school blog this week, Jeremy writes about what it’s been like spending his first week with us.

Postcard from the Edge of the Universe. 

 

Watch ICG Member on the Sky at Night

By

ICG member, Dr. Karen Masters will make an appearance on the next episode of the Sky at Night, first airing this Sunday 8th June, 10pm on BBC4.

The theme for this month’s episode (first airing Sunday 8th June) is Impacts.

Dr. Masters discusses impacts on the biggest scales – the collisions of galaxies, with Sky at Night presenter and colleague Dr. Chris Lintott (Oxford University).

arp274_hst_big-1024x592

HST Image of Merging galaxy pair Arp 274.

 

The show will air four times on BBC4, and will also be available later to download on iPlayer. For more details visit the BBC Website.

ICG professor is recognised in the first SEPnet Public Engagement Awards

By

ICG’s Professor Claudia Maraston has been recognised for her excellent public engagement activities in the inaugural SEPnet Public Engagement Awards. SEPnet (the South East Physics Network) has awarded prizes to 4 researchers from across their partner institutions for their exceptional contribution to engaging the public with their research, and highly commended a further 4 researchers for their projects.

Professor Maraston was Highly Commended in the ‘Public engagement with research to enrich cultural life: Project awards’ category. She was nominated primarily for her role in setting up and running the ‘A Visit from Space’ programme in collaboration with Dr Daniel Thomas and Dr Jen Gupta. A Visit from Space takes a team of ICG staff and students into a different primary school each month for a morning of space activities, including a talk by Professor Maraston, classifying galaxies in Galaxy Zoo and making a scale model of the solar system. Working with the University of Portsmouth Education Liaison and Outreach Team, the programme has targeted local widening participation schools, reaching over 500 key stage 2 pupils since summer 2013.

A Visit from Space at Northern Parade Junior School. Credit: Northern Parade Junior School.

A Visit from Space at Northern Parade Junior School. Credit: Northern Parade Junior School.

Professor Maraston, along with the other prize winners, has been invited to attend a prize-giving ceremony at the SEPnet Graduate Network Summer School at NPL, presented by Prof Jim Al-Khalili. The full press release, including details of all the winners, can be downloaded here: Researchers receive awards for Public Engagement (Word document).

 

Twitter

Facebook