Space Lates - July
This month our Discovery team will be proving that #spacerocks
- 12th Jul 2024
- Tickets from £8.00
- Highly Engaging Talks and Workshops
- Very Limited Capacity
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Space Lates
Space Lates is an evening created for people who want to know more – those who have an interest in astronomy, space missions, and the exciting research happening here in the UK, around the world, and out in space.
For this Space Lates, we’re looking at Space Rocks.
We’ve curated a special evening packed with guest speakers, interactive workshops and live demos, planetarium shows, and stargazing.
Explore our galleries after-hours and finish your evening with a live astronomy session with Leicester Astronomical Society (weather permitting).
Planetarium
Tour of the Summer Night Sky
18:45, 19:45 – pre-booked
Head to the UKs largest planetarium to join our Space Communications team for a tour of the night sky with a look a some different types of space rocks!
Talks
Head to our LIVE Space and Shuttle Suites to hear from our expert guest speakers.
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Rocks, Rubble and Rings
- Matthew Kenworthy
- Associate Professor of Astronomy, Leiden Observatory
- 18:15 and 20:15
You don’t need big telescopes to make Earth (or exoplanet) shattering discoveries! Space rocks can be in rings around other planets and stars, and occasionally you get to see maybe even planets colliding. I’ll talk about searching for giant rings around alien worlds, rubble from cosmic collisions, and what may be the first detection of the glow of giant planets colliding.
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Sampling the Solar System
- John Bridges
- Professor of Planetary Science, University of Leicester
- 18:15 and 19:15
Recent and upcoming space missions have been designed to sample asteroids, comets, the Moon, Phobos, and Mars. These are in some ways the next stage in exploring our Solar System. Join John as he share how the University of Leicester is part of many of these missions, analysing returned samples and planning the new instrumentation in space and Earth needed for them.
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From Meteorites to Mercury, With Love
- Julia Cartwright
- Independent Research Fellow, University of Leicester
- 19:15 and 20:15
Meteorites remain some of the most important materials for understanding the where, what and why of our Solar System, because they preserve information about key events and processes. For Mercury, as one of the least explored planets, we still don’t exactly know how it formed or what is going on at the surface. With the upcoming ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission on its way to Mercury, and building off of NASA Messenger mission data, Julia will share some of the research to understand the history of the smallest rocky planet in our Solar System.
Activities
Join our science communication team and supporting contributors throughout the evening to explore a range of different activities.
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Space rocks – mysteries unlocked
- 18:00-21:00 (drop-in)
- Graham Ensor
Displayed from the Graham Ensor Collection, find out about some of the oldest rocks from space – take a look at the building blocks of our solar system (including the largest Lunar meteorite in the UK) and hold a piece of space history.
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Detecting exoplanets
- 18:00-21:00 (drop-in)
- National Space Centre
Join our Space Communications team to find out how exoplanets can be discovered using the transit method. Put your science investigation skills to the test and see if you can identify distant alien worlds using transit light curves.
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Activity - TBC
- TBC
- TBC
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Stargazing
- 18:00 - 21:00 (drop-in)
Meet the Leicester Astronomical Society to find out more about stargazing and to look through their telescopes.
*weather permitting
About Space Lates
All talks and activities are aimed at adults and families interested in science.
Children are welcome; however, parents/guardians need to decide if children are happy to attend accessible and engaging 30-minute talks.
You are free to explore our galleries throughout the night.
Please note that the Rocket Tower and Tetrastar Spaceport will not be open.
Hot food can be pre-ordered when purchasing your ticket.
Our café will be open throughout the evening.
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Space Lates
Previous Space Lates events