NHEHS Astrophysics Conference 2024 Report by Year 12 Zara
By Zara D, Year 12
On 1st May, the Year 12 Physics and Computer Science students from NHEHS, as well as students from other local schools, took part in an Astrophysics conference, hosted by NHEHS. There were speakers from different fields of space Physics and Computer Science studying at Imperial College London.
To start the day, we had a talk by Dr Sophia Zomerdijk-Russel who is a post doctoral research assistant at Imperial. She gave a brief introduction into planetary magnetospheres and how we are currently using and building spacecraft to collect data and learn more about our solar system. I found this very exciting as with the advancement in technologies our spacecraft are able to detect and monitor a variety of different attributes of a planet and how its magnetosphere affects its physical environment.
For the next part of the day, we were introduced to our challenges based around the International Space Station (ISS). The Physics challenge consisted of calculations involving the orbit of the ISS based on orbital equations, the computer science challenge was a programming-based challenge which required us to research in order to improve a model of the ISS’s orbit. Our final challenge was a poster/presentation about how to protect the ISS from space junk and collisions with objects whilst in orbit. These tasks challenged us to use and interpret equations and code that we were not familiar with, and to apply them to a practical scenario, as well as using our problem-solving skills to find solutions to issues posed by space junk.
After lunch we had three short talks from Cara Waters, Zoe Lewis and Dr Sama Aleshaiker about their PhD’s, working as a researcher and the use of computer science in the Physics industry.
Following this, we finished our work on our challenges. We split the work into different groups to maximise time spent on each project and having handed in the Physics questions we all pulled together to improve the programming model and finish our poster on the ISS. We decided to focus on using laser-based methods to protect the ISS as well as the already implemented shielding as we felt it was a safer option that deorbiting. This was because a miss calculation in the trajectory of deorbited objects could direct them towards human settlements on earth.
At the end of the day, we got a chance to look around to see what the other groups had been working on throughout the day, before the winners were announced at the end of the conference. It was a very informative day that allowed us to ask questions and learn more about areas of space Physics as well as what it is like to study Physics at university.
