Well it’s been a busy few weeks. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to see Comet PanSTARRS, it was far too cloudy where I am and there was also too much light pollution. Despite my own lack of a sighting, I did appear briefly on Sky News (see here) speaking about how you might see the comet. I should have listened to my own advice and gone to somewhere a bit darker…possibly like the new dark skies reserve that was created recently in Exmoor National Park. May be a good place to go for Comet ISON, only 8 months to go…fingers crossed it will be easier to spot.
Last week I was away at the Lunar Planetary Science Conference in Houston. This was a fantastic week of scientific presentations on all manner of space-related research. Check out the abstract volume here for 2 page summaries of the science presented. My abstract is here which I presented on Friday 22nd March in the ‘Stardust and IDPs’ session, which I also chaired alongside Don Brownlee. I had lots of fun and I had some useful feedback after my talk, so hopefully some exciting new collaborations are on the way.
I also had a busy media week. I was mentioned in The Guardian and The Telegraph newspapers in relation to the BBC Women Expert Training. I also appeared in a podcast for the Milton Keynes Citizen website speaking about my research and where I work. I also now appear on the new BBC Expert Women YouTube Channel that was announced and released by Tim Davie, the acting BBC director-general. The channel includes the podcasts of all the expert women from the course I attended in January. It’s really interesting to see what everyone does.
Anyway, I’m back in the lab now after the madness of conference preparation and travelling. This week I’m analysing carbon and nitrogen isotopes in a meteorite sample, hopefully I’ll get some interesting results.