Our Y12 Physics students recently participated in an Astronomy Masterclass at The University of Sheffield.

The students were given the task of identifying planets in the goldilocks zone, those that have the potential to support life. They had to perform calculations on a planetary database, identifying those with a suitable range of surface temperatures to allow for liquid water, taking into account their proximity to stars, the temperatures of the stars and other factors.

Following on from this, they had a rooftop tour of the department’s 16” Schmidt-Cassegrain and 10” robotic ROSA telescopes.

The day ended with a lecture by Professor Paul Crowther who explained the main techniques astronomers employ to search for blackholes ranging from solar mass black holes all the way up to super-massive black holes like Sagittarius A at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.