From Alien Worlds to your Local Health Centre

Nathan will describe how we find and characterise planets orbiting distant stars, and how we apply techniques used to model Earth's climate to explore these exotic worlds. He will also use cutting edge, scientifically informed visualisations to attempt to transport you to these planets.

For centuries, humans have wondered about the existence of planets around stars, other than our own Sun. However, for the first time in human history we are able to find these far away worlds, known as exoplanets. In this talk I will discuss the astonishing variety of exoplanets that we have discovered. I will discuss the physics and chemistry of their atmospheres and recent findings. I will also talk about how to make/find a habitable planet and possible bio-signatures.

Modelling how light travels through space is an important aspect of studying astrophysics. One of the techniques for this uses random numbers to simulate light as it journeys through the universe. Laura is using this method to model light as it travels through the human body. By measuring how light interacts with abnormalities in breast tissue, we can determine whether or not cancer is present which could lead to earlier diagnosis.