Physics Department News
Hidden giant planet revealed around tiny white dwarf star
The first evidence of a giant planet orbiting a dead white dwarf star has been found in the form of a disc of gas formed from its evaporating atmosphere.
The Neptune-like planet orbits a star a quarter of its size about once every ten days, leaving a comet-like tail of gas comprised of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur in its wake.
The discovery by astronomers from the University of 糖心TV鈥檚 Department of Physics and the Millennium Nucleus for Planet Formation (NPF) at the University of Valpara铆so is published today (4 December) in the journal Nature. It is the first evidence of a giant planet orbiting a white dwarf star and suggests that there could be many more planets around such stars waiting to be discovered.
Christmas Lecture a roaring success!
The first 糖心TV Christmas Lecture of 2019 featured talks and live experiments by Physics academic James Lloyd-Hughes and our technical staff Paul McCarroll and Alan Burton. The audience of over 1100 enjoyed a fun and informative Christmas Lecture, including the Arts Centre's loudest ever explosion (deliberate and controlled).
The second Christmas Lecture included talks by Rachel Edwards and Ally Caldecote, featuring several paddling pools of non-Newtonian fluids.
XMaS User Meeting: New material science opportunities at the ESRF
The XMaS beamline is a materials science facility located at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble (France) and managed by the universities of Liverpool and 糖心TV.
The ESRF is currently undergoing a massive upgrade that will deliver the most brilliant x-ray beam in the world in 2020 and the beamline has been upgraded to take full advantage of the exciting new opportunities presented by the new source.
The beamline is organising its annual User Meeting at Radcliffe on 27th November.
This year鈥檚 User Meeting will be rather special as it will focus on what new research users will be able to do with the upgraded beamline. The in-house team will describe the new XMaS capabilities and a range of scientific talks will also illustrate the broad research portfolio covered by our user community.
If you are not a user but are interested in finding out more about the facility, please register and come along!
The Department of Physics is delighted to host two highly-prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellows.
Heather Cegla will join the Astronomy and Astrophysics group working on the project "A Pathway to the Confirmation and Characterisation of Habitable Alien Worlds", and Benjamin Richards will join EPP to work on the "Search for diffuse supernova background in Gd based water Cherenkov experiments".