Exploring the cosmos: from Exoplanets to Black Holes

Space Week at MU takes off like a rocket

Some 400 visitors touched down at the TSI building for Maynooth Universities Space Week 2022, while our astrophysics experts on the ground faced some tricky questions from across the generations.

‘Exploring the Cosmos’ featured cutting edge research and explorations into the vastness of space from the Departments of Theoretical and Experimental Physics.

Dr Emma Whelan discussed the science behind the hunt for exoplanets – planets outside our own solar system. Over 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting far-flung stars from tens to thousands of light years away from us. Scientific techniques are developing to identify and characterise these newly discovered systems.

Sharing her experience of working on a piece of technology within the James Webb Space Telescope, Dr Whelan outlined her hopes for the new insights as it generates new and more detailed images. She even brought some smaller telescopes for attendees to get a closer look at the moon.

“I was very proud to kick off the night by discussing exoplanets which are some of the closest and smallest objects that astronomers study,” she said. “I was inspired to see so many girls and women in the audience and I hope I was able to motivate them to see physics and astronomy as a viable career path. My favourite part of the night was when we set up telescopes outside the TSI building so that members of the public walking past could take a peek at the moon. Their reaction to this simple act energised me to continue to try to encourage people to look up at the stars and away from their phones!”

Dr John Regan brought the audience on a trip to one of the most exotic objects in our Universe – black holes. He outlined how a black hole forms, how we can detect them, and the future of black hole hunting using gravitational wave observatories, in which Maynooth University participates. He also took some questions from the audience on the strange effects at the edge of a black hole – like time slowing down and what might happen to you if you crossed the event horizon into a black hole.

This event really brings to the public audience the fundamental questions that we as scientists are trying to address. Astronomers have revealed so much about the cosmos – that it is vast in scale, at least 14 billion light years in radius, that it is exceedingly complex, with galaxies and clusters of galaxies linked together in a cosmic web and surrounded by giant voids of empty space. But we have so much more to discover, and Maynooth University researchers are at the cutting edge of this research - Prof Peter Coles

Dr Creidhe O’Sullivan discussed her observations of the early Universe, showing the audience how scientists observe the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – a specific type of radiation left over from the Big Bang – and what it can tell us about the early Universe and its formation. Dr O’Sullivan also talked about the experiments to observe the CMB that involves MU researchers.

Prof Peter Coles took the audience on a journey into the ideas that physicists are weaving together to explain how our Universe came to be the way it is. Cosmologists have developed theoretical explanations for its origin that involve exotic concepts such as dark matter and dark energy, producing a cosmic web of ideas that is in many ways as rich and fascinating as the Universe itself. He shared his work with the Euclid mission – a large European Space Agency mission to map the geometry of the Universe and better understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, which make up most of the energy budget of the cosmos.

Event organiser Dr John Regan commented: “This was a fantastic opportunity for visitors to come, visit the University and learn about our work in astrophysics, meet scientists and ask questions about the universe. We set out to inspire the next generation with our work so it was fantastic to see so many families in the audience. It demonstrates the real interest in space related research among the general public and it was great to be able to showcase the world class astrophysics research undertaken at Maynooth. I would particularly like to thank my colleagues in the Departments of Theoretical and Experimental Physics who answered some very tricky questions from the next generation of scientists, and who we hope to have inspired to follow us into physics. We hope to host many more similar events in the future.”

Space Week at MU is supported by Maynooth University, Science Foundation Ireland and the Royal Society