Outreach stand at the Diamond Synchrotron

I spent 3 hours showing meteorites and answering questions from over 400 people on a stargazing night, organised by RAL Space and the Diamond synchrotron.

The CaSE 2015 Cross-Party Debate

The Campaign for Science and Engineering put together another excellent debate with the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities, Dr Greg Clark and the corresponding representatives from the Labour Party, Liam Byrne; and the Liberal Democrats’, Dr Julian Huppert MP. This panel was chaired by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

(L-R) Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Liam Byrne, Greg Clark, Julian Huppert

A write up of the event, including a video of it and a storify to which I contributed can be found here.

Christmas Parliamentary Reception

I received an invitation to the Christmas Parliamentary Reception organised by the Society of Biology on behalf of the science and engineering community. Awards were presented to David Willetts (former Science Minister) and others, and it was a good opportunity to meet scientists from different disciplines and engineers, as well as talk to our politicians and policy makers.

Dr Ellen Stofan, "A Journey to Mars", CaSE Annual Lecture

I attended and helped to live tweet the Campaign for Science and Engineering’s 24th Annual Distinguished Lecture, "A Journey to Mars", by Dr Ellen Stofan, NASA’s Chief Scientist.

The event was fully booked, and a reception afterwards allowed me to meet Dr Ellen Stofan and NASA's Chief Technologist, David Miller, who kindly gave me an MSL Curiosity pin badge!

The audio of the event and further information can be found on these blogs by CaSE and the Science Museum.

RAS200 "Sky & Earth", Townhall Meeting

I helped to chair the RAS200 "Sky & Earth" Townhall Meeting at the National Space Centre, Leicester.  This education and outreach initiative by the Royal Astronomical Society aims to award £1million to 10-12 projects over the next 5 years leading up to the 200th anniversary of the society. More details are available here.

MSc certificate!

Astronaut Dr Stan Love at the University of Leicester

Dr Stan Love gave a fascinating one hour talk about his experiences as a scientist and astronaut at the University of Leicester on Wednesday 22nd October.

My supervisor and his students with astronaut Stan Love
(L-R) Me, Dr Stan Love, Leon Hicks, Dr John Bridges, Stuart Turner

I got an invite to lunch with him beforehand as my supervisor had arranged his visit in conjunction with Dr Susanne Schwenzer of the Open University. I was excited to hear about his wide range of experiences, including ANSMET (the Antarctic Search for Meteorites expedition), D-RATS (Desert Research and Technology Studies), NEEMO, and his postdoc work on meteorites.

Charlie Bolden at the American Embassy, London

I was honoured to be invited to a Q&A session with Charlie Bolden at the American Embassy in London, where drinks afterwards allowed me to speak briefly with him. Many thanks for the photos courtesy of Jaisha Wray, as we had to relinquish our electronics at security.

Ries crater field trip

We spent an amazing 5 days in Germany learning about the Ries and Steinheim craters, on a field trip as part of my MSc course.

Fermor meeting: Comparative Planetology

I presented my first poster on my MSc work on the 'Black Beauty' meteorite, NWA7034, at this two day meeting in London.

European Lunar Symposium

I presented our lunar team report at the European Lunar Symposium, held at the National History Museum, London.  This was from a planetary design workshop I attended at ESTEC earlier in the year.

Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Council Elections

Jane MacArthur BSc (Hons) FCA FRAS

Standing for election as Councillor (G)

Nominated by: Professor Ian Crawford, Birkbeck, University of London

Seconded by: Dr Stuart Eves, Airbus Defence and Space

UK National Point of Contact for Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC)

Member of: Society for Popular Astronomy, British Interplanetary Society (BIS), UK Students for Exploration & Development of Space (UKSEDS), Austrian Space Forum (OeWF)

Special interests: Meteoritics, Impact craters, Comets, Astrobiology

"Voice of the Future 2014", Parliament

Tweets from the "Voice of the Future" session which I attended at Parliament on Wednesday 19th March 2014, many thanks to the Royal Astronomical Society for the invitation. The full video broadcast can be watched here. [Organised by the Society of Biology.]

#LPSC: Martian meteorites

Tweets from the Martian meteorite sessions at LPSC 2014 and the abstracts. Mon 17th March afternoon: NWA7034 & Pairings Tue 18th March morning: Mars Petrology and Petrogenesis

GeoVUsie Planetary Science Symposium

Here is a collection of tweets from the GeoVUsie Planetary Science Symposium, held VU, Amsterdam, on Thursday 13th February 2014. Details of the speakers can be found here.

Swedish Institute of Space Physics

Our fascinating tour of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) informed us about several of their projects. As a research institute they have nearly 100 staff based at Kiruna, with further groups at Uppsala, Umea and Lund.

IRF have been involved in many past, current and future space missions. Their latest success is having two instruments accepted for JUICE, Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, due to orbit Ganymede from 2030. They have two instruments on Rosetta, a dual Langmuir Probe from IRF, Uppsala, and Ion Composition Analyser (ICA) at IRF, Kiruna. These instruments will be tested towards the end of March 2014 to check they are working properly following the extended two year hibernation period of the mission.

Mission involvement

Two instruments on JUICE

Future missions

Early Career Planetary Scientists' Meeting, UKPF

Here is a collection of tweets from the Early Career Planetary Scientists' Meeting, held at the Open University on Friday 17th January 2014. Details of the conference programme can be found here.

9th Appleton Space Conference - RAL Space

Here is a collection of tweets from the 9th Appleton Space Conference, held at RAL Space on Thursday 5th December 2013. Details of the conference programme and attendees can be found here.

9th Appleton Space Conference - HRH Prince Andrew Duke of York

"We need students to get involved in science and engineering, we have a problem with growth in space industry and needing to bring more people into this. Its important to communicate the excitement of science and technology.
.

Where are you going to get the next generation of young people from? Unless you encourage some forms of outreach programmes, I know all of you do it, but there seems to be a missing link somewhere – that’s really the point I’d like to make today.

I’ve been inspired from the point that I was actually prevented from doing Physics at school. I was forced into general science when I wanted to go and od Physics. I then went to the Navy, had a certain amount of “your” technology delivered to me either in my aircraft or in my ship, but it’s the growth of the applications in the 21^st century that means we need to encourage more and more young people to make use of these applications and get the word out there.

I go round schools, support a number of different schools, universities, technology colleges, academies, private schools, as a matter of course. But its how to get some of the applications into their programme.

CaSE Science & Engineering Cross Party Debate

Here is a collection of tweets from this debate.