Astronomy is generally thought of as “looking at the night sky”. However, modern astronomy involves observing across the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma-rays, detecting magnetic fields and high energy particles from space, exploring the planets, asteroids and comets in the solar system, and most recently, measuring gravitational waves. Each of these gives a window on to the cosmos and it is only by combining these methods that we get a full understanding of what is “out there”
This talk will describe how we get that full view of the amazing universe in which we live.
Dr Peter Allan is a space scientist and astronomer working at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). He did a PhD at Manchester University on the subject of black hole models of quasars and subsequently held research positions in astronomy at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the USA. He has worked at RAL since 1990 on astronomical software systems, Earth observation data systems, satellite control systems and international standards for space data systems.