A Journey into Outer Space, March 16th 2011

A Journey into Outer Space, with Brian Cox

16 Mar 2011

This discussion took place at the RGS on 16th March 2011.

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Event summary

Martians, big bangs, entropy and Higgs particles were just a few of the starry topics covered by our panel of astronomical luminaries at ‘A Journey into Outer Space’ at the Royal Geographical Society.

As the first speaker the historian – and only non-scientist – Richard Holmes gives a wonderful whistlestop tour of astronomy’s history – ‘the trailing edge of science’. By pairing famous astronomers with poets of the same period (Ptolemy and Ovid; Galileo and Milton etc.), and charting the imaginative impact of cosmology, Holmes argues that the supposed barriers between art and science never truly existed.

Next up, the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees speaks on the wider universe; beyond the domain of the stars. Starting close to home and moving out, he muses on the high chance of solar systems like ours existing, and what it might look like if two galaxies collided.

The BBC’s Professor Brian Cox discusses his day job at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva and the search for the elusive Higgs particle. Through high-speed proton-on-proton collisions scientists at CERN are trying see what the universe looked like, a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.

Charles Simonyi, the computer entrepreneur and civilian-astronaut, describes what it's actually like to be in space. As one of only 24 people to ever journey outside the atmosphere, he gives a rare and fascinating account of his time on the International Space Station.

Colin Pillinger, the man who captured the country’s imagination with his attempt to find life on Mars with the Beagle 2 project, is the last speaker. He tells the story of the extraordinary Martian rock samples with their minerals and potential fossils, which compelled him to launch Beagle 2 and find undeniable evidence of extraterrestrial life. The Beagle 2 lost contact during flight, however, and remains the one that got away.

Speakers

Brian Cox

Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester
Richard Holmes

Biographer whose latest book, The Age of Wonder, chronicles the scientists of the Romantic age who laid the foundations of modern science
Colin Pillinger

Planetary scientist best known as leader of the Beagle 2 project, the attempt to land a British built spacecraft on Mars in 2003
Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal
Charles Simonyi

Software architect and spaceflight participant who has twice been aboard the International Space Station