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If you’re inclined to gaze up at the night sky occasionally then keep your eyes out this year because we are lucky to have 2 comets passing the Earth that both have the potential to be seen with the naked eye. Below are some details about the two comets: Comet PANSTARRS and Comet ISON. Be warned though, comets are invariably hard to predict so some of this information is subject to change depending what the comet feels like doing. I’ll try to update as and when there’s any news. It’s always good to remember the following saying:

“Comets, they’re like cats, they’ve got tails and they’re unpredictable”. I don’t know who originally said this but I’ve never forgotten it.

Note: Neither of these comets have any chance of hitting the Earth so we can view their beauty without worrying about any nasty side effects.

Comet PANSTARRS

The first comet to be seen this year is Comet PANSTARRS (official name: Comet C/2011 L4). It has been predicted that comet PANSTARRS will pass closest to the Earth at 1.1 AU (AU means ‘Astronomical Units’ which is the average distance between the Earth and Sun. 1.1 AU is about 93 million miles) on March 5^th, 2013. It will then pass close to the Sun (within 0.3 AU, about 28 million miles) where it will be heated up causing the ice it contains to vaporise resulting in a brightening of the comet and the production of a classic comet tail (or a coma). So, in the northern hemisphere we should be able to see comet PANSTARRS in the evening sky low in the west throughout March. It may even be possible to see it without a telescope or binoculars.

Comet ISON

Comet ISON (official name C/2012 S1) has the potential to be the more exciting comet of 2013 and may even produce a meteor shower on 16th January 2014 as the Earth passes through the coma of comet debris. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed though because it has a bit of a perilous journey. Comet ISON is classed as a ‘sun-grazing comet’ because on November 28^th it will pass within 0.012 AU (750,000 miles) of the Sun. If it manages to survive this very close encounter, and not disintegrate into small pieces, then comet ISON will be a beautiful sight in the night sky, glowing as bright as the moon, and it may even be possible to see it in the daytime too throughout December (I’ve heard that Boxing Day (December 26^th) may be the best day)! This all depends on it surviving though…fingers crossed.

Comet ISON is a special comet not only for astronomers but also cosmochemists like me. This is because it is a dynamically new comet meaning that it has come from the Oort cloud and is entering the inner Solar System for the first time. So, all the dust that it captured from the early Solar System has not been processed by the Sun’s heat before meaning it contains pristine material. The NASA Cosmic Dust Lab sometimes make collections of dust with their high altitude aircraft that coincide with meteor showers. The ISON meteor shower, if it happens, will be a particularly special one and I really hope that NASA can get some aircraft up with dust collectors on to collect some Comet ISON dust.

I’ve just found out that my work has been chosen as a talk presentation at the 44th annual ‘LPSC’ conference in Houston, Texas in March. This is a large planetary science meeting for the international community bringing together specialists in petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, geology, and astronomy to present the latest results of research in planetary science. The five-day conference is organized by topical symposia and problem-oriented sessions.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/

I’ll be presenting my recent research on the silicate and organic compositions of comets based on analyses of cometary dust particles in the ‘Stardust and IDPs’ session which will be on Friday March 22nd. I’ll also be convening the session with Don Brownlee so I’m really excited. I only have 15 minutes to present my findings (this is normal at large conferences) which doesn’t sound very long…and its not, it always flies by and there’s a lot to get through. Just preparing my data for the presentation will take me the best part of 3 weeks…better get started!

You can follow the conference on Twitter using #lpsc2013. There will be microbloggers this year so hopefully lots of information will be spread throughout the global community really quickly.

You can see a 2-page abstract about the work I will present here. I’ll be writing this up as my next journal paper too.

Just discovered this great YouTube channel by James May from Top Gear. Loads of cool little videos about science topics. Good fun! Think I learnt a few things too.

James May’s YouTube Channel Head Squeeze

On Friday (January 18th 2013) I had a hugely exciting day at the BBC Academy, White City in London. I went on a course that was part of an intitiative to increase the number of women experts on tv, radio and online. 30 women took part as trainees and we’d been selected from over 2000 applicants, I was so lucky to get a place and felt even luckier when I read the biographies about the other women attending, they are all amazing.

After an inspiring and entertaining introduction from the likes of space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock and journalist/author Daisy Goodwin, my ‘science specialists’ group went into ‘The Business of the Business’ meeting with various tv and radio media types. Here we learnt about the inside of the business which was helpful for us newbies who understand the insides of a laboratory far better than the inside of the media. This event was filmed and is available on the BBC Academy site. We then went to a tv studio to film a BBC ‘The One Show’ style interview. I went with Elizabeth Pearson (a physics expert) and we answered questions posed by Gwenan Edwards all about space and, for me, comets 🙂

Next was the networking lunch which flew by so quickly and I met so many people (most of whom I need to compose some emails to this week). It was a really useful meeting, everyone was so interested in what we did and really supportive. It’s nice to know that some other people love comets and asteroids too! Hopefully we can see some more of about them on tv/radio/online soon.

After lunch we did a Radio 4 style discussion interview about ‘Why are girls not studying science’. The presenter was Liz Barclay, she was so professional and made it great fun. If I can make the recorded interview available on here then I’ll do it.

Finally we did our ‘piece-to-camera’. We got a few practices and so it was interesting to see how we improved with a bit of input about our style from the BBC people training us.

The take home message: Be yourself + 10%. Right, I’ll try to figure out how much extra my 10% is now then.

We finished the day and I battled my way home through the snow, dealing with a cancelled train, a very hot tube journey followed by a delayed train that eventually got me home to some well deserved fish and chips.

Plans now? Well, get myself started with the media things. I think I’ll start with some online things/podcasts and see if there are any radio opportunities.

Why am I doing this? Well, the statistics are appalling, on some tv programmes there are fewer than 2 women for every 10 men appearing as experts. No wonder young girls are shying away from studying science. I don’t know if I can inspire young women into science but I’m hoping that by advertising what I do, and making it a bit more accessible to young people that it might just work. Afterall, who can’t find space science interesting.  Have a read of this Telegraph article for Alice Arnold’s views on the day. Also, the head of the BBC Academy, Anne Morrison, also wrote a few words on her blog which you can read here.

Wow, my first ever blog. So, I plan to write updates as and when I do exciting things science research- or outreach- related. From time to time I will try to discuss some interesting new things that are happening in general science…I’m not just interested in space and volcanoes!!