Rosetta Philae scientist to deliver major lecture at Queen's

22 June 2015

Monica Grady CBE, Professor of Planetary and Space Science at the Open University will deliver the Royal Irish Academy 2015 McCrea Lecture at Queen’s on 26 June. Professor Grady was one of the leading scientists involved in the Rosetta mission which oversaw the landing of the Philae space probe onto a moving comet - Comet 67P - last November.

 

Having been in hibernation for over seven months, the Philae comet lander recently started sending messages back to earth. Relayed via its mothership, Rosetta, which is in orbit around the 4km-wide icy dirt-ball, the signal was picked up by the US space agency in California before being passed on to the European Space Agency.

 

In the light of the probe ‘waking up’, and given the involvement of Queen’s University researchers in the project, the free public lecture is expected to generate a lot of local interest.

 

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s which provided research support to the mission by telescopic observations from Earth, will also be present. Speaking to the BBC, Professor Fitzsimmons said: "Rosetta has been beaming commands every couple of weeks to Philae, in the hope that it will signal back, and now it has!

 

"Philae is basically saying 'Hello, I'm awake, I'm going to check myself out and then we can back to doing some science'." The lecture will include a detailed account of the Rosetta mission to date, along with a more general insight into comets and why some people think they may hold the key to how life originated on Earth.

 

Philae made history and captured the public imagination as the first spacecraft to successfully land on a moving comet, but scientists at the European Space Agency lost contact with it three days after touchdown when the primary battery ran out.  Since then, space scientists at ground control have been hoping that sunlight would recharge Philae’s batteries and allow it to resume contact. With contact restored on Saturday 14 June it is hoped that Philae may now be able to relay more information about comets back to Earth.

 

The Rosetta mission is one of the most complex and ambitious ever undertaken in space exploration, with a ten-year lead-in for the project and more than 2,000 people involved around the world.

 

Given recent events, it is expected that this free public lecture will be very popular, so advance registration (here) is strongly recommended.

 

The Royal Irish Academy 2015 McCrea Lecture will be held on Friday 26th June, at 7pm in the Larmor Lecture Theatre, School of Mathematics and Physics, at Queen’s.

 

For media inquiries please contact Una Bradley (Mon-Wed) on Tel. 028 9097 5320 or Michelle Cassidy (Thurs-Fri) on Tel. 028 9097 5310 or email comms.officer@qub.ac.uk

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