As part of a series of monthly public lectures, Galway Astronomy Club will host a FREE talk on Monday, September 9th at the Westwood House Hotel starting at 7.30pm. The speaker will be renowned RTE Space commentator; Leo Enright who has broadcast live commentaries on every major space event since the first Moon landing. He will examine in detail the past and future roll of Curiosity, the car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars.
To scientists this is the most interesting site on the Mars, The crater is full of clay deposits, the kind that form when water was abundant on the Red Planet and when conditions were more conducive to life. The talk will be about how NASA is attempting to push the boundaries of our understanding of the origins of life by using Curiosity’s instruments to make definitive evidence about whether certain organic molecules are present – the kind associated with cells and to attempt to answer the fundamental questions ‘Is the Earth unique?’.
Further talks in October include Professor Mike Baillie of Queen’s University Belfast, a world expert on tree-ring dating, and is well known to many astronomers in Ireland and further afield for his interesting and thought-provoking lectures on the rate of relatively recent comet/asteroid impacts on Earth as revealed by accurate tree-ring dating of climatic events, and indeed with possible links to stories in Irish and other mythologies.
While in November NASA scientist and Trinity College Astrophysicist, Daniel Ryan will talk about how gigantic Solar Flares occur and how our advanced technological society could quickly crumble into anarchy if and when one hits Earth.
Galway Astronomy Club also hold free monthly beginners workshops at NUI Galway with the next one about observing the International Space Station starting on Monday 18th at 7.30pm, For further information go to
www.galwayastronomyclub.ie
or phone Ronan Newman on 0868434003.
Thanks
Ronan Newman
Chairman
Galway Astronomy Club
