"The Solar System and Beyond" A talk by Catherine Tryfona.

The audience of around 60 people of all ages were treated to an excellent intersesting talk by Catherine Tryfona.  The evening also marked the launch of the school’s new Astronomy Club which is being run by teacher Michelle Ward. Carl Metcalf – Head of Physics.

Catherine’s illustrated lecture was entitled ‘The Solar System & Beyond’ and she covered the Sun and the inner planets plus the Asteroid Belt in great detail and inviting questions as she progressed. When she touched on the subject of meteorites, meteors and meteoroids, samples of meteorites were handed round. A recurring theme was the Earth’s fate due to Global Warming and even 1bn years into the future, when the Sun expands and makes Earth uninhabitable, she explained why a manned exploration of Mars is so necessary now.

The outer planets plus the Comets from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud were also covered.  Catherine concluded by talking about the search for exoplanets, the number of which is changing daily

John Taylor also presented a book on the ‘Stars & Planets’ to the first person to name our nearest star.

If you weren’t there you missed a treat!

Report by Tony Young, Photos by Jim Bell

Catherine Tryfona

Biography:
Catherine is a planetary science lecturer at the University of Glamorgan and works in astronomy outreach programmes with the same institution. She also works on behalf of the Faulkes Telescope Project based at Cardiff University. Since an early age she's loved anything space-related and can't believe her luck that she gets paid to have people listen to her talk about her favourite subject - astronomy, something her family have had to endure since she was quite small! Catherine lives in Cardiff with her husband (Theo) and her daughter (Chrissa-Sophia).

University of Glamorgan & Cardiff University