Bart Busschots
It's time to update our text books and websites etc. as we now have eight planets rather than nine. No, aliens didn't torpedo one out of the skies, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) have finally decided on a definition for a planet within our solar system and Pluto doesn't meet the criteria so it's been demoted to being a Dwarf Planet. Since the first time I ever gave it any real thought I've always felt that it was a mistake to call Pluto a planet. In fact I've blogged about this before: What exactly is a planet? At first I wasn't sure about the wording of this new definition but on reflection I think it was the best we could have hopped for and I'm now going to try convince you of that too!
Technorati Tags: Pluto, Planet, IAU
The New Definition
So what is this new definition? Well, I'll give you the official wording first and then translate into English for you!
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar
System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the
Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around
the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid
body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d)
is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
So what does that really mean? Well, it means that to be a planet you need to satisfy the following:
* You must be round,
* Go round the Sun but not another planet,
* And you must dominate your neck of the woods (i.e. you have to be 'the daddy' in your neighbourhood).
The first two criteria are pretty self-explanatory but the last one is worth looking into a little more. Firstly, why is it there? Well, if you're made of mostly ice like most of the objects out beyond Pluto you really don't have to be that big to become round. Certainly no where near as big as objects made of rock need to be. Without this final criteria we could end up with hundreds of planets.
But what does it really mean? What it boils down to is that that you have to be very big to be a planet. Large objects have such a large gravitational influence that they clear themselves a space within the solar system. Objects that were in that space either get pushed aside or pulled into the large object. This means that the planets all orbit alone without other large objects near by. This is where Pluto fails. There are lots of objects with orbits very close to Pluto's.
Not a Line in the Sand
Something that I think almost everyone agreed was that it would be a bad idea to just draw a line in the sand and pick an arbitrary size and say "if you're bigger than this you're a planet if you're not you're not". This would have a been a stupid way to do this because we would have ended up picking a size like 1,000km which is only a nice number because of the units we happen to use for length. This would have no actually physical meaning and would lead to some interesting debates on objects that were approximately 1000km across but with an error in our best measurement of a few tens or even hundreds of km. What the IAU set out to do was to pick a definition that was based on physics and they have done so, there are no numbers mentioned anywhere in the definition.
Not a Siler Bullet
Anyone looking at the definition will of course be able to see that it is no silver bullet. You won't just be able to enter the details of any new planet candidate into a formula and get out an answer of "Planet" or "non-Planet". There will still have to be a debate in the IAU for each new planet candidate and a vote will still have to be taken on it. It will still be a judgement call. However, it will now be a judgement call based on three criteria rather than a judgement call based on no criteria. I don't think it is possible to come up with a silver bullet in this case so I'm happy that we now have a focus for all future debates on the planetary status of an object in our solar system.
But What About Pluto?
Pluto will now be relegated to the status of Dwarf Planet but it has been honoured as the prototype object for this whole new class. This makes sense. Making Pluto a planet in the first place was a mistake as I explained in my previous posting on defining the word 'planet'. I'm not going to go over those same arguments again here because it's ground that has been covered many times before. This mistake has now been rectified. It was also not the first such mistake and Pluto is not the first object to be demoted. Ceres is the biggest and brightest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and hence it was the first of it's kind discovered. It was regarded as a planet for a number of years but as time went on more and more similar objects were discovered and it was realised that Ceres was not a planet but the biggest of a huge population of smaller bodies. When Ceres was relegated a new term was coined as a fudge to lighten the blow; "Minor Planet". This is all very similar to what has happened here with Pluto. It was the first of a whole new class of object to be discovered and as more of it's kind were found people realised it was a mistake to call it a planet and it has now been demoted and made the first of a new kind of object. It was also given a consolation prize like Ceres, only this time the term was Dwarf Planet rather than Minor Planet. An interesting twist is that this resolution further demotes Ceres to a Small Solar System Body and retires the term Minor Planet all together.
Conclusions
This new definition is no silver bullet. It still leaves a lot of room for debate and doesn't even begin to tackle what to call objects orbiting other stars. However, are we better off than we were before? I would say we are. Before we had no definition beyond "it's a planet if the IAU say it is", now we have a set of criteria that define a planet. True, each planet candidate will still have to be debated but now there is a focus for that debate which is something we've never had before. Finally, I think this finally un-does a 70 year old mistake and re-instates our eight real planets.
Bart Busschots is studying for a PhD with the Computer Science Department in NUI Maynooth, focusing mainly on eLearning.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Just how far can we see?
Just how far can we see?
Well, on a clear night with just the naked eye you can see for 23,651,826,181,450km (2.5 million light years) to the Andromeda galaxy. With modern telescopes and advances in science and technology we can see many times further than this, and the further we look into space, the further back in the history of the universe we see. Not only do we want to look deeper into space, we want to be able to observe it in greater detail. Seeing further and in more detail requires larger and larger mirrors in telescopes. However there is a simple mechanical limit to how large a mirror can be made. Too large a mirror will deform and bend under its own weight, warping the light that falls on it.
For almost three quarters of a century the largest, most powerful telescope in the world was the Leviathan which was built by the third Earl of Rosse in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1845. This telescope’s mirror is 72 inches in diameter and with this, the third Earl of Rosse was the first to observe the spiral structure of many nebulae and also observe individual stars within them. Following on from this work, Edwin Hubble realised that these nebulae were in fact galaxies completely separate to, and often much larger than our own.
The largest ground based telescope today is the Keck telescope located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Keck is revolutionary in its design in that it consists of 36 hexagonal mirrors all working together in an array so that the telescope has an effective diameter of 10m. Each mirror is small enough to be supported by itself and can be moved independently to a precision of four nanometres (250,000 times thinner than a human hair) to give the optimal shape of an overall much larger mirror. With the Keck we have been able to see further than ever before from our planet. And yet we are still limited in our view of the universe. To get into really fine detail and to see further still we need to go above and beyond the atmosphere of the earth. Perhaps the most well known telescope in space is the Hubble Space Observatory, a telescope with a mirror 2.4m in diameter orbiting 589km above the earth’s surface. Hubble has produced some of the most breathtaking images in astronomy, including the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” – an image which looks deeper into space than any other image ever taken. Hubble and the Keck have also observed the single most distant object seen to date – a faint galaxy 13 billion light years away. They are seeing this galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were being formed.
Yet we are still pushing to see further back in time and in greater detail. How far will we be able to push this? Right back to when the very first stars “switched on” and began emitting light? One telescope which hopes to do just this is NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope which is due for launch in 2013. It will be similar in design to the Keck, being composed of 18 hexagonal mirrors which will give an overall mirror diameter of 6.6m, significantly larger than Hubble and without the atmospheric distortions that affect the Keck. Construction of the 18 mirrors was completed last week and they are currently being ground and polished, before being assembled in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This telescope hopes even to be able to shed light on the origins of life on other planets.
So just how far can we see? 13 billion light years so far, but we are constantly pushing this boundary further back. The James Webb telescope will look further than ever before and who knows what light it will be able to shed on the origins of our universe, but it will no doubt be an exciting time for astronomers and scientists everywhere.
Sarah Kennelly is the President of the Physics and Astronomy Society, Astro2 and is currently in her final year of Physics with Astrophysics.
Well, on a clear night with just the naked eye you can see for 23,651,826,181,450km (2.5 million light years) to the Andromeda galaxy. With modern telescopes and advances in science and technology we can see many times further than this, and the further we look into space, the further back in the history of the universe we see. Not only do we want to look deeper into space, we want to be able to observe it in greater detail. Seeing further and in more detail requires larger and larger mirrors in telescopes. However there is a simple mechanical limit to how large a mirror can be made. Too large a mirror will deform and bend under its own weight, warping the light that falls on it.
For almost three quarters of a century the largest, most powerful telescope in the world was the Leviathan which was built by the third Earl of Rosse in Birr, Co. Offaly in 1845. This telescope’s mirror is 72 inches in diameter and with this, the third Earl of Rosse was the first to observe the spiral structure of many nebulae and also observe individual stars within them. Following on from this work, Edwin Hubble realised that these nebulae were in fact galaxies completely separate to, and often much larger than our own.
The largest ground based telescope today is the Keck telescope located atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The Keck is revolutionary in its design in that it consists of 36 hexagonal mirrors all working together in an array so that the telescope has an effective diameter of 10m. Each mirror is small enough to be supported by itself and can be moved independently to a precision of four nanometres (250,000 times thinner than a human hair) to give the optimal shape of an overall much larger mirror. With the Keck we have been able to see further than ever before from our planet. And yet we are still limited in our view of the universe. To get into really fine detail and to see further still we need to go above and beyond the atmosphere of the earth. Perhaps the most well known telescope in space is the Hubble Space Observatory, a telescope with a mirror 2.4m in diameter orbiting 589km above the earth’s surface. Hubble has produced some of the most breathtaking images in astronomy, including the “Hubble Ultra Deep Field” – an image which looks deeper into space than any other image ever taken. Hubble and the Keck have also observed the single most distant object seen to date – a faint galaxy 13 billion light years away. They are seeing this galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were being formed.
Yet we are still pushing to see further back in time and in greater detail. How far will we be able to push this? Right back to when the very first stars “switched on” and began emitting light? One telescope which hopes to do just this is NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope which is due for launch in 2013. It will be similar in design to the Keck, being composed of 18 hexagonal mirrors which will give an overall mirror diameter of 6.6m, significantly larger than Hubble and without the atmospheric distortions that affect the Keck. Construction of the 18 mirrors was completed last week and they are currently being ground and polished, before being assembled in NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This telescope hopes even to be able to shed light on the origins of life on other planets.
So just how far can we see? 13 billion light years so far, but we are constantly pushing this boundary further back. The James Webb telescope will look further than ever before and who knows what light it will be able to shed on the origins of our universe, but it will no doubt be an exciting time for astronomers and scientists everywhere.
Sarah Kennelly is the President of the Physics and Astronomy Society, Astro2 and is currently in her final year of Physics with Astrophysics.
Drugs...Let's be realistic
I am continually appalled at the number of people who know nothing of the basic truths about street drugs, even those in counselling, or health advisory. The pathetic government leaflets in waiting rooms or student guidance rooms, giving "The FACTS about Drugs” provide so little that it can lead to misinformation for interested or worried people in our drug culture. Biased and unbiased information is widely available – check out www.erowid.org. Here’s a very short Do’s and Don’ts of some substances.
Chemicals
The Ecstasy experience is all about the love buzz (synthetically produced and somewhat shallow, but affectionate). Coming up causes rushes up the throat and legs, and then looseness of the jaw and mouth muscles begins, until limp limbs are so relaxed that one is driven to dance and chat. Come down may outweigh the positive experience, depending on your susceptibility to the seratonergic response – irritation and lethargy on the comedown, and baseline depression may result a couple days later. Excessive use is guaranteed to mess with your brain, and your stomach. The active drug MDMA, found in powder form or pure crystals (clear/white to yellow/pink, depending on the level of impurities), is mixed with lots of different powders or speeds or rat poisons to make pills. Speckled pills are generally dipped in some kind of psychedelic.
Drink water, but not excessively. It’s easy to develop obsessive compulsions, so don’t worry too much. Have a pint all the time to share with your friends, and someone fill it up whenever it’s empty. Have a bit of chocolate, a square or something every hour to maintain blood sugars. Keep an eye on jaw-clenching, chewing gum may help but it can be mentally controlled if you choose to.
Allergic reaction is highly unlikely but can kill. If you’re willing to take the risk, start with a half, with an experienced friend administering it who’ll tell you if you’re too demented to take more.
Coke is a light amphetamine with a subtlety which may be more favourable than the strength of E, and shorter lasting. The second ingredient is kerosene, and any coke you get around here is likely to be very impure. Addictive and detrimental. Speed: The Drug of the Awake.
Psychedelics
The choice to use a psychedelic should coincide with a sense of responsibility and a readiness to accept reality beyond your knowledge. Don’t treat psychedelics like pills, or else prepare for trouble. Schizophrenic or other psychiatric disorder risks shouldn’t touch them, obviously. And people with addictions or depressions shouldn’t go near them outside of a healing, clinical atmosphere.
For example, Magic mushrooms may bring your thoughts to a super-fast level, and may open your brain into areas you didn’t know were there – causing an immediate need to restructure your perception, how you thought the world worked. This may be awesome or awful. Aside from the spiritual revelations connected with all psychedelics, expect hallucinations to come in forms of multi-colours, constant shifting of what your brain may otherwise perceive as ‘solid’, and so behaviour dives into an area of random apparent unconnectedness. Read Hunter S. Thompson.
LSD is more synthetic, derived from psilocybin mushrooms and can be much more powerful. Don’t mess with this unless you’ve tripped before, and then tread carefully. Don’t double drop, even eat only half a tab at first. Beware of the stamp too, like pills, some are good, and some are alright, but some are bad and this can cause a bad trip, or worse.
It is important to take psychedelics with people who’ve taken them before, preferably a guide or shaman, as those who choose to eat psychedelics must be prepared to face their fears. You are dealing with a force that expands your mind and releases memories and thoughts you might be suppressing or never knew you had. Salvia Divinorum is a sage that is highly recommended as a prerequisite before any longer-lasting psychedelics. If you smoke salvia extract (5 or 10 strength) in a bong, be sure to intake as much as you can within about 2 minutes (a friend should administer it and remove the device on completion). What this does is both highly unpleasant and astoundingly enlightening. Physically, there’s a strange tingling sensation followed by complete confusion, followed by psychedelia. Pick your music, lie down, and relax. It lasts about 7 minutes but light effects can last a while after. Salvia is quick and safe in comparison to things like LSD, which may last 8 hours or more, and gives a vital insight into the psychedelic world. Addiction is nigh-on impossible due to the nature of the trip.
Expect the unexpected. But expect nothing.
Dope
Marijuana in its pure form is a very simple and pleasant narcotic. Its active ingredient is THC, which relaxes the body and lifts mood. Negatively, it causes lethargy and interference in short-term memory. Weed is the pure state, from which hashish is made. Good hashish is soft and oily, bubbles slightly if burned. Powdery flat-press and pollen are common in this country, which are lower in the hierarchy. Finally comes soap-bar, which most people call hash. However, it more closely resembles a mix of ketamine (horse tranquilizer), plastic and shit which have doping effects, whereas the actual quantity of THC may be exceedingly low. It is addictive and damaging to the brain, and can lead someone as far away as possible from the goodness of the wholesome marijuana experience. Stick to purity.
Let it never be said that marijuana is not mentally addictive! A stoner may lose everything through laziness and lack of vision. In moderation, however, it can offer a reality-change positive and pleasant enough that one can maintain active social engagement. Moderation is too often exceeded, unfortunately, giving the drug a bad rap. As a mild psychoactive, people at risk of mental disorders should approach with extreme caution for long-term effects.
Moderation is the key. With more serious experiences, read up on everything you can, because open-minded learning is what matters. Forget social politics beyond maintaining your ever-important self-confidence.
You are you, you are here.
Peace.
Love.
Any particular questions or comments can be directed to agraphia@gmail.com.
Chemicals
The Ecstasy experience is all about the love buzz (synthetically produced and somewhat shallow, but affectionate). Coming up causes rushes up the throat and legs, and then looseness of the jaw and mouth muscles begins, until limp limbs are so relaxed that one is driven to dance and chat. Come down may outweigh the positive experience, depending on your susceptibility to the seratonergic response – irritation and lethargy on the comedown, and baseline depression may result a couple days later. Excessive use is guaranteed to mess with your brain, and your stomach. The active drug MDMA, found in powder form or pure crystals (clear/white to yellow/pink, depending on the level of impurities), is mixed with lots of different powders or speeds or rat poisons to make pills. Speckled pills are generally dipped in some kind of psychedelic.
Drink water, but not excessively. It’s easy to develop obsessive compulsions, so don’t worry too much. Have a pint all the time to share with your friends, and someone fill it up whenever it’s empty. Have a bit of chocolate, a square or something every hour to maintain blood sugars. Keep an eye on jaw-clenching, chewing gum may help but it can be mentally controlled if you choose to.
Allergic reaction is highly unlikely but can kill. If you’re willing to take the risk, start with a half, with an experienced friend administering it who’ll tell you if you’re too demented to take more.
Coke is a light amphetamine with a subtlety which may be more favourable than the strength of E, and shorter lasting. The second ingredient is kerosene, and any coke you get around here is likely to be very impure. Addictive and detrimental. Speed: The Drug of the Awake.
Psychedelics
The choice to use a psychedelic should coincide with a sense of responsibility and a readiness to accept reality beyond your knowledge. Don’t treat psychedelics like pills, or else prepare for trouble. Schizophrenic or other psychiatric disorder risks shouldn’t touch them, obviously. And people with addictions or depressions shouldn’t go near them outside of a healing, clinical atmosphere.
For example, Magic mushrooms may bring your thoughts to a super-fast level, and may open your brain into areas you didn’t know were there – causing an immediate need to restructure your perception, how you thought the world worked. This may be awesome or awful. Aside from the spiritual revelations connected with all psychedelics, expect hallucinations to come in forms of multi-colours, constant shifting of what your brain may otherwise perceive as ‘solid’, and so behaviour dives into an area of random apparent unconnectedness. Read Hunter S. Thompson.
LSD is more synthetic, derived from psilocybin mushrooms and can be much more powerful. Don’t mess with this unless you’ve tripped before, and then tread carefully. Don’t double drop, even eat only half a tab at first. Beware of the stamp too, like pills, some are good, and some are alright, but some are bad and this can cause a bad trip, or worse.
It is important to take psychedelics with people who’ve taken them before, preferably a guide or shaman, as those who choose to eat psychedelics must be prepared to face their fears. You are dealing with a force that expands your mind and releases memories and thoughts you might be suppressing or never knew you had. Salvia Divinorum is a sage that is highly recommended as a prerequisite before any longer-lasting psychedelics. If you smoke salvia extract (5 or 10 strength) in a bong, be sure to intake as much as you can within about 2 minutes (a friend should administer it and remove the device on completion). What this does is both highly unpleasant and astoundingly enlightening. Physically, there’s a strange tingling sensation followed by complete confusion, followed by psychedelia. Pick your music, lie down, and relax. It lasts about 7 minutes but light effects can last a while after. Salvia is quick and safe in comparison to things like LSD, which may last 8 hours or more, and gives a vital insight into the psychedelic world. Addiction is nigh-on impossible due to the nature of the trip.
Expect the unexpected. But expect nothing.
Dope
Marijuana in its pure form is a very simple and pleasant narcotic. Its active ingredient is THC, which relaxes the body and lifts mood. Negatively, it causes lethargy and interference in short-term memory. Weed is the pure state, from which hashish is made. Good hashish is soft and oily, bubbles slightly if burned. Powdery flat-press and pollen are common in this country, which are lower in the hierarchy. Finally comes soap-bar, which most people call hash. However, it more closely resembles a mix of ketamine (horse tranquilizer), plastic and shit which have doping effects, whereas the actual quantity of THC may be exceedingly low. It is addictive and damaging to the brain, and can lead someone as far away as possible from the goodness of the wholesome marijuana experience. Stick to purity.
Let it never be said that marijuana is not mentally addictive! A stoner may lose everything through laziness and lack of vision. In moderation, however, it can offer a reality-change positive and pleasant enough that one can maintain active social engagement. Moderation is too often exceeded, unfortunately, giving the drug a bad rap. As a mild psychoactive, people at risk of mental disorders should approach with extreme caution for long-term effects.
Moderation is the key. With more serious experiences, read up on everything you can, because open-minded learning is what matters. Forget social politics beyond maintaining your ever-important self-confidence.
You are you, you are here.
Peace.
Love.
Any particular questions or comments can be directed to agraphia@gmail.com.
Interview with Dr. Créidhe O'Sullivan
An Interview with Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan of the Experimental Physics Department.
This week I will be interviewing Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan about her life as a researcher and a lecturer. Dr. O’Sullivan got her PhD at Cambridge University in England before becoming a research scientist at UCC and then NUI Galway. Since 1998 she has been a lecturer with the Experimental Physics Department of NUI Maynooth and does research as part of the Submillimetre-Wave Optics Group of NUIM.
Question: What areas of research are you involved in?
Answer: “My main field is in working with telescopes and looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), that’s the radiation that was left over after the Big Bang.”
Dr. O’Sullivan tells me that measuring the radiation left behind by the Big Bang is very difficult as temperature readings are very faint and either a satellite is required to make the measurements from space or observatories in places like the South Pole.
“These are things that Maynooth is helping with, we’re helping with things like instrumentation for the telescope in the South Pole and the Planck Mission (with the European Space Agency, E.S.A.) which is due to be launched next year.
Q: What motivation was there to start this research in the department?
A: “It’s a curiosity in the research, I mean usually in astrophysics you’re trying to search for things that are really far away and actually quite difficult to measure but the reason why you want to find the answers is usually curiosity because cosmology is such a fascinating subject. We’re looking back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang which is a short time after the Big Bang before there were stars before there were galaxies to find out how the Universe was made.”
This also pushes technology to keep up with astrophysics and meet the demands of researchers who are always trying to look farther back in time than before.
Q: What benefits are there outside Astrophysics?
A: “Well now we’re looking into medical research and medical imaging which hasn’t really been done before because it’s hard to make this radiation in the lab.”
Astronomers have been working with wavelengths of about 1 millimetre, just between radio waves and visible light and now this research is helping to find tumours and it even has security applications by seeing through skin and clothes to reveal concealed items.
Q: What other research bodies are involved?
A: “QUaD, the telescope in the South Pole, is led by researchers in Cardiff University and also in Stanford. The optics; the design and instrumentation, are an area that Maynooth specialises in.
Q: What do you like about working on this topic?
A: “It’s a fascinating area, cosmology is something you could easily go home and read a book about. You set yourself a problem that’s difficult to do so that’s pushing the boundary. It’s a fast moving area of research now because so many groups have become involved in it around the world. We get to test theories that have been around for a while because only now do we have the instruments to do that.”
Q: Do you attend many conferences?
A: “Yes we’re expected to go to at least one conference per year and publish our results and we give talks at these conferences. We’re expected to publish our work in journals as well.”
Q: Do you have any other interests or pastimes?
A: “Outside work I quite like orienteering, hill-walking and travelling.”
Q: What would you say to undergrads who are thinking about a career in either University based research or industrial based research?
A: “Being a researcher in a university is a really interesting job, you would be doing something that interests you and you’re challenging yourself the whole time. You never get bored, in some ways I think we have a bit more freedom[compared to industrial research] I mean there’s still pressure from funding groups to stick to certain areas but we do have a bit more freedom particularly academically, I mean we’re paid to teach as well. Also business goals for research may be more short term based trying to make a mass producible item that people can buy whereas we’re trying to make precision instruments for use in our field of research and our plans are usually long term ones.”
I’d like to thank Dr. O’Sullivan for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions.
This week I will be interviewing Dr. Créidhe O’Sullivan about her life as a researcher and a lecturer. Dr. O’Sullivan got her PhD at Cambridge University in England before becoming a research scientist at UCC and then NUI Galway. Since 1998 she has been a lecturer with the Experimental Physics Department of NUI Maynooth and does research as part of the Submillimetre-Wave Optics Group of NUIM.
Question: What areas of research are you involved in?
Answer: “My main field is in working with telescopes and looking at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), that’s the radiation that was left over after the Big Bang.”
Dr. O’Sullivan tells me that measuring the radiation left behind by the Big Bang is very difficult as temperature readings are very faint and either a satellite is required to make the measurements from space or observatories in places like the South Pole.
“These are things that Maynooth is helping with, we’re helping with things like instrumentation for the telescope in the South Pole and the Planck Mission (with the European Space Agency, E.S.A.) which is due to be launched next year.
Q: What motivation was there to start this research in the department?
A: “It’s a curiosity in the research, I mean usually in astrophysics you’re trying to search for things that are really far away and actually quite difficult to measure but the reason why you want to find the answers is usually curiosity because cosmology is such a fascinating subject. We’re looking back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang which is a short time after the Big Bang before there were stars before there were galaxies to find out how the Universe was made.”
This also pushes technology to keep up with astrophysics and meet the demands of researchers who are always trying to look farther back in time than before.
Q: What benefits are there outside Astrophysics?
A: “Well now we’re looking into medical research and medical imaging which hasn’t really been done before because it’s hard to make this radiation in the lab.”
Astronomers have been working with wavelengths of about 1 millimetre, just between radio waves and visible light and now this research is helping to find tumours and it even has security applications by seeing through skin and clothes to reveal concealed items.
Q: What other research bodies are involved?
A: “QUaD, the telescope in the South Pole, is led by researchers in Cardiff University and also in Stanford. The optics; the design and instrumentation, are an area that Maynooth specialises in.
Q: What do you like about working on this topic?
A: “It’s a fascinating area, cosmology is something you could easily go home and read a book about. You set yourself a problem that’s difficult to do so that’s pushing the boundary. It’s a fast moving area of research now because so many groups have become involved in it around the world. We get to test theories that have been around for a while because only now do we have the instruments to do that.”
Q: Do you attend many conferences?
A: “Yes we’re expected to go to at least one conference per year and publish our results and we give talks at these conferences. We’re expected to publish our work in journals as well.”
Q: Do you have any other interests or pastimes?
A: “Outside work I quite like orienteering, hill-walking and travelling.”
Q: What would you say to undergrads who are thinking about a career in either University based research or industrial based research?
A: “Being a researcher in a university is a really interesting job, you would be doing something that interests you and you’re challenging yourself the whole time. You never get bored, in some ways I think we have a bit more freedom[compared to industrial research] I mean there’s still pressure from funding groups to stick to certain areas but we do have a bit more freedom particularly academically, I mean we’re paid to teach as well. Also business goals for research may be more short term based trying to make a mass producible item that people can buy whereas we’re trying to make precision instruments for use in our field of research and our plans are usually long term ones.”
I’d like to thank Dr. O’Sullivan for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions.
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