Faulkes Telescope invited to VIP event at HM Treasury
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The Faulkes Telescope team along with King's School, Canterbury, were invited to a VIP event organised by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) at HM Treasury on October 25th. The event, Worlds Within Worlds, was a celebration of the current success of UK planetary science and technology. This prestigious meeting invited politicians, industrialists and academics all over the UK, to look to the future in planetary science, asking the big questions about our own Solar System and highlighting how technological breakthroughs in astronomy has led to economic and cultural growth in society.
Among the invited speakers was the science minister, Lord Sainsbury, Professor John Zarnecki from the Open University (famous for the highly successful Titan mission) and Professor Keith Mason, Chief Executive of PPARC. The fun started however, when the benefits of space science as a tool for promoting science in schools students was highlighted in a speech by Cardiff University's very own Professor Mike Edmunds (who is also Chairman of PPARC's Science and Society Committee). Students from King's school along with their teacher Andrew Taylor were invited on stage to speak in front of the distinguished audience, following on from their involvement with Faulkes Telescope imaging NASA's collision with a comet in July this year. The students talked about Faulkes Telescope North and the inspirational feeling when using a 2-m research class telescope in the classroom.
King's School with some of the speakers and organizers of the event. From left to right: Professor Jon Zarnecki, Robert Watson, Julia Bird, Malcolm Morgan, Andrew Lewis, Hear Say's Mylene Klass, Stephan Wassermann-Fry, Andrew Taylor (teacher), Professor Keith Mason, Robin Clegg
Aside from journalists (including News of the World and the Sun), the students also got to meet a pop star! Hear Say's Mylene Klass was at the event. She is currently studying for an Open University degree in Astronomy.
King's School have had a long history with Faulkes telescope and have been part of the asteroids, Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and comets educational programme, since operations began. Pupils from the school formed part of a world wide group, using Faulkes Telescope North to observe comet Tempel 1. Members of the Faulkes Telescope team were on the island of Maui and were part of the programme which captured the first ground based observations of Deep Impact.
For more information about Deep Impact, look at the Faulkes Telescope Deep Impact pages.
