Deep space discoveries

A generation ago the only planetary system we knew was our own. Since then, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered. They seem to be very common and extremely diverse. We are starting to map out - if not yet understand - their demographics, and in some cases get detailed insights into their atmospheres. Large space telescopes capable of detecting signs of life on other planets could be less than a generation away. Suzanne will talk about the main ways we search for exoplanets, how likely it is that some of the planets we already know host life, and what it would take to find out.

Black holes are amongst the most fantastic conceptions of the human mind - regions of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape to the outside universe. And yet... they exist; in fact they are everywhere. In all directions on all scales and distances, their presence dominates the growth of galaxies, they are the sites of the most extreme physical conditions since the big bang, and their birth produces bursts of gravitational waves which we can now measure. Rob will discuss how we can observe black holes, and some of the latest observations from the spectacular birth of one in 2017.