Stargazing live with the Oxford University Department of Physics

Last weekend a group of students joined astronomers from the Oxford University Physics Department for an evening of stargazing and space science. Cassy Le reports on what they did:

‘On Saturday 16th of January, there was a stargazing event at the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford. It was a great opportunity for us students interested in physics and astronomy to discover the department and at the same time attend public lectures, and participate in the different activities that were available on the day.

A group of us gathered and made our way together from the school right after dark, and as we arrived, there was a long queue, so we figured that it must have been quite popular. But it wasn’t boring at all standing there waiting! There were some students and professors walking around entertaining the crowd with devices such as infrared heat detectors and they gave us the chance to ask anything we were wondering about.

Once we got in, we could see that the place was packed with people of all ages and that there were activities adapted for everyone. We first made our way up to the top to try out the telescopes. Unfortunately, it was a bit too cloudy to see a lot of the stars, but we did get a very nice look at the surface of the Moon!

Then we took a look at the various stands that were around and attempted some of the space related things they had set up and although they were mostly designed for younger children, it didn’t stop us from enjoying them too! For example, we got to touch the oldest thing we will ever get to touch – a fragment of a meteorite older than Earth itself. Two of us even became fully qualified Venusian weather forecasters! (Some of us even let ourselves out fully and got planets and galaxies painted on our faces but shhhh that shall remain a secret.)

I think it is safe to say that by the end of the day, we were all quite exhausted but learnt a lot from this event, not to mention the hilarious time we spent together as a group!’