This March, we were thrilled to host the return of the Space Exe Conference. The society has a proud tradition of bringing together a diverse range of speakers for an annual space science conference open to members of the University and the wider community. Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the conference took a hiatus but the 2022-23 committee worked hard to bring this society tradition back.
The day brought a fantastic range of speakers who helped bridge the gap between the astronomical and the terrestrial. To open, we had videomaker and science communicator Dr Simon Clark. His videos on YouTube cover a range of topics from atmospheric physics and climate change to interesting PhD stories around the world. Simon gave a talk about his approach to science communication and its importance in the modern media landscape.
Following that, we had Dr Raphaelle Haywood from the University of Exeter. She delivered a talk titled ‘There is no Planet B’, which focused on the search for Earth-like exoplanets and how, even though we may discover a near-perfect replica of Earth, it would be too far to venture to, leaving us with the conclusion that we must protect our pale blue dot.
Des Howlett from the Norman Lockyer Observatory took us back to the 19th century to explore the connections behind the observatory. Norman Lockyer was a 19th century astronomer whose contributions include the discovery of Helium in the Sun’s atmosphere and the creation of the journal Nature.
Our president Alex Mcginty gave a talk on his Master’s project which deals with adapting climate models used by the Met Office to Mars’s current climate in order to better understand the driving forces that impact it. After the Moon, Mars presents the next frontier in human space exploration. Although still incredibly difficult to survive on, it is explorable compared to other planets like Venus.
After a brief break, we resumed with our final two talks. The first came from Ollie Lewis, a PhD student at the University who is using radio telescopes and aeroplanes to improve weather forecasts. When moisture is in the atmosphere, it refracts radio waves emitted by aircraft. Ollie is trying to use this to measure the amount of moisture in our atmosphere and therefore improve weather forecasts.
Our final talk came from Dr Sebastiaan Krijt, a lecturer at the University whose research focuses on the early stages of planet formation. During his talk, he touched on the work of Christiaan Huygens, how planets form and ongoing research work by undergraduate and PhD students at the University of Exeter.
As a committee, we were thrilled with how the conference turned out and we look forward to sharing details of future iterations, which we will strive to make even bigger and better!
Stay Spacey – The Committee
All talks can be found on our Youtube Channel.