Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Celebrating 70 years of Humanities at Imperial College London

Posted on Feb 20, 2020 in News

Imperial College London is world-renowned for its research and education in science, technology, engineering, maths, medicine and business. It is perhaps less well known that the humanities have a long and fascinating history at Imperial: for 70 years, the arts, humanities and social sciences have enriched the cultural and intellectual life of Imperial’s staff and […]

Dining with Copernicus

Posted on Feb 12, 2020 in Multi-Sensory, Outreach, Public lecture, universe

In Sept 2018, I had the pleasure to be invited to take part to an “immersive dinner experience” organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London. Combining theatre, history, astronomy and cuisine, the evening celebrated in an entertaining manner Polish history and the discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus. I gave the “Astronomer’s Speech”, on the life […]

The Nature of Reality

Posted on Aug 19, 2019 in Gresham College, News, Outreach, Public lecture

FREE LECTURE SERIES 2019-20 The Nature of Reality Roberto Trotta, Visiting Professor of Cosmology All lectures are free on a first-come first served basis, but we can book for schools/ colleges on enquiries@gresham.ac.uk  Monday 4 November 2019, 1pm, Museum of London Weighing the Universe  The cosmic microwave background is the luminous echo of the primordial […]

Multi-Sensory Cosmology

Multi-Sensory Cosmology (In collaboration with computer-human interaction expert Prof Marianna Obrist and her team at SCHI Lab at the University of Sussex) Much of our scientific knowledge is transmitted via intellectual means, based on abstract concepts and gained through reading and other mostly visual means. This modality of transmission can be hard to engage with […]

g-ASTRONOMY: The Universe, on the Tip of your Tongue

Posted on Mar 15, 2017 in g-ASTRONOMY, Hands-On Universe, Outreach, Public lecture

An exciting and innovative public engagement project, g-ASTRONOMY, will bring the wonders of the universe to people with sight loss through a multi-sensorial gastronomical experience on March 14th 2017. g-ASTRONOMY aims to break the assumption that astronomy and astrophysics can only be understood in terms of visual representation. By creating simple, elegant (and edible) metaphors […]

Today on the arXiv: Light echo gives insight into SNIa dust environment

Posted on Oct 12, 2016 in astro-ph, Research, universe

I noticed this interesting paper using high resolution, multi-epoch images from Hubble to study the time evolution of the aftermath of the explosion of SNIa SN204J, which went off in 2014 in the nearby galaxy M82 (a mere 11 million light years away). The data show the presence of a radially expanding light echo, as well […]

Today on the arXiv: how to measure the intrinsic CMB dipole, and radio emission from DM in the Coma cluster

Posted on Oct 6, 2016 in astro-ph, Research, Science

Elena Pierpaoli and her collaborator Slavash Yasini come up with a clever way of measuring the intrinsic CMB dipole, and disentangling it from the much bigger dipole induced by the Earth motion with respect to the CMB rest frame. The key idea is that leakage of the intrinsic dipole into the monopole and quadrupole induces […]

Today on the ArXiv: How to ride a light beam to the stars, and how not to analyse distance indicators

Posted on Oct 3, 2016 in astro-ph, News, Research, Science

Today on the arXiv, a nice analysis of how to design a solar sail in such a way that the light beam powering it is prevented from rocking it side to side, and hence destabilising it. The key idea is to use a spherical sail (rather than conical designs as previously proposed) and a multi-modal laser […]