Friday Club – Oct 23rd

Here is Friday’s programme with a few links for background information

Exoplanets and the search for a second Earth

Brian Skidmore, (Reading AS)

Exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system that (usually) orbit other stars. To date nearly 2000 have been discovered and it’s clear that they come in a wide variety of types from ‘hot Jupiters’ to ‘super-Earths’ to ‘mini-Neptunes’. In this talk I’ll describe how these worlds are discovered and how astronomers are closing in on finding a planet that is like our own as well as what it might take to find out if it supports life.

After the coffee break….

Latest news, Near Earth encounter
Asteroid TB145 will pass by a distance just a little further than the moon. The worrying part is in the name. The ‘TB’ designation reveals that it was discovered in the first half of October!
http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-announced-an-unexpected-asteroid-flyby-this-halloween
We will dig out some details about its orbit if they are known by Friday.

10 minute talk – orbital basics. Topical because of the, currently running, planetary conjunctions.
We won’t have time for a complete talk on orbits but a quick run through of the terms use by space science will be OK.

….plus the usual announcements and members activities.

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