Jeremiah Horrocks Institute

The highest resolution telescope to observe the solar corona was launched successfully on the 11th July 2012. The High-Resolution Coronal Imager instrument, or Hi-C, flew aboard a Black Brunt sounding rocket that was launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The instrument flew for around 10 minutes, Read More …

One of our postgraduate researchers, Simon Murphy, has been offered a prestigious grant to work at the University of Porto, Portugal, for three months later this year. The project aims to develop upon the existing models for delta Scuti stars, on which there is great expertise at the Centro de Read More …

We welcome Prof Derek Ward-Thompson who joined us on 1st July 2012 as new Director of the JHI. Derek is a world-leading researcher in the astrophysics of the formation of stars and planets. He has published extensively in high-impact journals in astronomy and astrophysics, attracting over 4000 citations to his Read More …

The transit of Venus on June 4, 2012, was presented through NASA beam-back from Hawaii at the fully packed Church of St Michael and All the Angels in Much Hoole. Jeremiah Horrocks lived at Much Hoole, and may have been a lay reader at the church at the time he Read More …

Three physics and astrophysics students studying from UCLan have observed the transit of Venus on 5-6th June 2012 from Hawaii as part of the University’s internationalisation scheme. The picture to the right was taken by the students and shows the dark disk of Venus (to the left) as it traverses Read More …

Three physics and astrophysics students studying at UCLan have had the opportunity to travel to Hawaii to view this year’s transit of Venus as part of the University’s internationalisation scheme. The students, Chris Rowley, Callum Slater, and Ben Miller, will spend time in Hawaii before the transit to soak up Read More …

Transit of Venus 2012    When Venus passes in a direct line between the Earth and the Sun, it is said to transit the Sun. A transit is visible as a black dot on the face of the Sun. The size of the dot is caused by the relative distances Read More …

Professor Don Kurtz has given a public lecture on Songs of the Stars: the Real Music of the Spheres at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics on the 2nd May 2012. The Pythagoreans 2500 years ago believed in a celestial “music of the spheres“, an idea that reverberated down the Read More …

The joint UK-Germany National Astronomy Meeting 2012 was held between 27-30th March in Manchester. This conference was well attended by members of the JHI, with many giving presentations. In the astrophysics sessions: Kelly Hambleton gave a talk on Heartbeat stars and Tidal Excitation which sparked some interest from the guys Read More …