Letter to a local Primary school in response to their astronomy questions...

I will try to answer all your questions in one letter, please email me if you have any future questions or tweet me @SotonAstrodome

What are black holes? How are black holes formed? Are they really black?

When a massive star, about 8 times bigger than our sun dies the star explodes, this is called a Supernova. The core that was at the centre of the star gets left behind, this core is so massive that it can’t hold itself up anymore, the massive gravity forces on it squash it down so much that it gets squashed into a very small invisible point known as a black hole. Black holes are actually more ‘invisible’ than black, but because space is black then this makes sense. They are invisible because they don’t give out light (like the Sun) or reflect it (like the Moon).

Are there any black holes in space? If so, how many are there? Is there a black hole in the Milky Way?

Yes! There are loads of black holes in our Universe; in fact there may be as much as 100 million black holes (which are each about the size of 8 suns, squashed into a very small volume) inside our own Milky way galaxy.

There is also a supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky way galaxy, which has a mass as big as 400 million suns. We know how big it is by looking at the speeds of stars moving around this invisible object at the center of our galaxy.

We don’t know the exact value for the number of black holes in our galaxy (or the Universe) because black holes are black, they don’t give out light like stars, or reflect it like planets, so we only know they are there when we can see stars orbiting the black hole, or being eaten by a nearby black hole.

Did any spaceships go into any blackholes?

No, we have not sent any spaceships to any black holes. Firstly they are all extremely far away and it would take many hundreds of years to get to the nearest black holes with the current technology. Also from using Mathematics and Physics formulas we can predict that any spaceship would get ripped apart by the strong gravity forces before it go to the black hole. Even if the spaceship was able to enter the black hole the signals it would send back to Earth, to tell us what was going on as it fell into the black hole, would also get sucked into the black hole. No information (not even light which is the fastest thing ever) can leave a black hole when it goes in. So basically, we will never known what goes on inside black holes exactly. They are very bizarre environments where our science theories fall apart, but we will keep trying to understand them.

Is there life on Mars? Is there life in the Andromeda galaxy and the rest of the Universe?

We have found water on Mars (mainly as ice or vapour) but at the moment we have not found any life, on Mars or anywhere else in the Universe. I personally believe that there IS such a thing as ‘Life on other planets’ or Aliens because from using the Kepler telescope to look at stars inside the Milky way we have found over 2,000 planets orbiting these stars.

You can actually help us find planets from this Kepler data by going on the website http://www.planethunters.org/

Current scientific research tells us that at least 1 in 5 stars that exist, have at least one planet. And there are 100,000,000,000 stars in the Milky way and 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the Universe, so there are a lot of places for Aliens to live. The Universe is SO big I think there has to be life out there somewhere.

What planets are we most likely to find life on?

If we assume that ‘Aliens’ are like us humans then we are more likely to find them on planets like our own Earth. This means the planets should have liquid water on them, and their distance from their star (which is probably like our Sun) is in what we call the ‘Habitable Zone’ or ‘Goldilocks Zone’ where the temperature is such that water is liquid on that planet.  Although, if these ‘Aliens’ don’t need liquid water then it is quite possible they could live on any kind of planet, hot or cold and their planet could orbit a star which is nothing like our Sun.

Did any things fall on the Earth? What are the things?

Rocks from space land on Earth all the time. When the rocks fall through our atmosphere they burn up and we see them as shooting stars, these are called Meteors. When these rocks actually land on the Earth they are called Meteorites. Meteorites are usually made of stones or iron and we think most of them come from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

A famous meteorite called ‘Alan Hills 84001’ fell to Earth in 1984 and landed in Antarctica, it came from the planet Mars. It was thought to show evidence of fossilised life from Mars inside the rock. After further investigation from the scientists it was decided that the fossils were not proof of life on Mars and possibly a result of contamination from Earth life.

What is negative energy and is it real?

I think you mean ‘Dark Energy’. This energy is very real, and is responsible for giving the Universe the energy to expand outwards at a higher rate than expected.

Is it true that in space your spine grows in length?

Yes, astronauts on the International Space Station who spend time living in microgravity have been known to grow taller in space, for example, someone 6 feet tall can grow by as much as 2 inches.

Astronomy Outreach News Update

The astrodome school visits are managed by Dr. Sadie Jones and a team of Postgraduate and Undergraduate astronomy students. The PhD (awesome team members) who started in Oct 2012 students have really risen to the challenge of working with the dome over the last year, these are Rob Firth, Sam Connolly, Poppy Martin, James Matthews, Juan Hernandez, Chris Risely and Aarran Shaw. Undergrad ‘Super woman’ Cait Percy and now astronomy PhD student (and also SET Physics Student of the Year) Chris Frohmaier are helping lead on many astrodome visits despite all their other outreach events.

The undergrads that work with the dome are Jen Allerton, Christine McCollough, Ryan Wood, Laura Crawford, Ben Turnbridge, Paul Wright. 


This year we said goodbye to PhD students Liz Bartlett and Seb Drave from the astrodome team as they got jobs in South Africa and London respectively and undergrad Olivia Keenan who got an astronomy PhD at Cardiff University. Also, Ridwan Barbhuiyan left the awesome team to study for a PGCE as a Physics teacher, he will no doubt continue to inspire the children of tomorrow in all that is great about Physics.

We recently (Oct 2013) trained up 4 new PhD students and 7 undergrads on campus and we are all very excited for when they start their on the job training out in schools soon. If you want to join the team there is always the opportunity to train on the job out at a school, just email Sadie to get more information on school dates.

In the first 2 years the ‘Soton Astrodome’ team have taken the mobile planetarium into over 80 local schools working with Primary students right the way through to A-level. All shows are presenter led and not only allow the students to learn about physics and astronomy in an immersive environment, but they also get to meet a real scientist/astronomer and ask questions about the show and the cutting edge research of the presenting astronomer.

At present over 16,000 students and members of the general public have participated in astronomy outreach events managed by Dr Sadie Jones, this includes our annual stargazing live events on campus every January.

This year our Stargazing event will be on the evening of the 9^th January, this is a free event open to the public. We are also aiming to have a campus event celebrating female astronomers on International Womans day on Saturday 8^th March. For more information on volunteering to help with these events or to book tickets see Sadie’s website,  http://astrodome.soton.ac.uk or tweet Sadie @SotonAstrodome

 Astronomy Spectrum Stand

Dr Sadie Jones, Chris Frohmaier, Cait Percy and Dr Mari Kolehmainen worked on an astronomy stand showcasing UoS astronomy research with the UoS Roadshow at both Cheltenham Science Festival in July 2013 and Bestival in September 2013.. We discussed how astronomers use the electromagnetic spectrum to see our universe with over 1,500 members of the general public across the 2 events. The main focus of the stand was the INTEGRAL gamma ray telescope.

Other opportunities working with the UoS Roadshow are expected in March at the Big Bang fair, please email Sadie for more information on how you can get involved.

Southampton Ogden Trust Schools Partnership

We have several events coming up, in partnership with 6 teachers at local schools, King Edwards, St Annes, Cantell, Burgate, Oaklands and Brookefield through the Ogden Trust Southampton Schools Physics Partnership. The first event is aimed at GCSE and A-level students, and is a lecture on Fusion by Dr Melanie Windridge. Other events include Starchaser rocket launching day 7^th Feb 2014 for year 8 and 9 and a Physics Olympics event in March 2014.

Science on the radio

Dr Sadie Jones is the science correspondent on BBC Solent on Sunday Mornings at 9.30am where she talks about 3 current science stories with presenter Nick Girdler. Also outreach extraordinaires Chris Frohmaier and Cait Percy present  ‘Science Hour’ on the University station, Surge Radio, every Thursday at 5pm. For more information on these shows see the astrodome website.

Aliens in the Universe talk

Lancing College

I have given this talk on aliens in the Universe on many occasions. Some of the most memorable times was to Foxhills school who brought along approximately 90 primary school children to the university or at the INTECH stargazing evening. At Intech I gave the talk 3 times to families and members of the general public and each show sold out :). I recently gave this talk at Lancing College which is an amazing place, reminded me a lot of Hogwarts (see right).

Included within the talk about Aliens/Life in the Universe, the students are asked to become the planets in the solar system by holding the inflatable planets and getting in order. The students in the audience are then encouraged to decide if the planets are in the correct order if they should be changed. I then try to create some discussion over which planets in our solar system are most likely to harbour life . 

Contents of Talk

Questions from students

This talk always spurs loads of questions, so many that I often have to leave many questions unanswered.