Ground control to Major Tom

Cassini-Huygens was a joint space mission of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. Between 2003 and 2017, the spacecraft travelled around the giant planet Saturn, studying the planet itself, its magnificent rings, and its many icy moons. In this talk, we’ll cover some of the amazing highlights of this hugely successful space project, including spectacular storms, erupting ice volcanoes, seas of liquid methane, and bizarre, saucer-shaped moons.

Spacecraft which have visited other planets in our Solar System have uncovered a wealth of knowledge as to how the space environments of these planets are formed, and how they compare with that of our Earth. Very important is the interaction between a planet's magnetic field and the solar wind - the stream of charged particles 'blowing away' from the Sun. In this talk, we will look at three important discoveries made with the Cassini spacecraft which has been orbiting Saturn for more than a decade. We will also look at the JUICE mission, which is going to revisit the magnetosphere of Jupiter.

I will give a view from the forefront of particle physics at an exciting time, as we try to connect our understanding of the very smallest particles in the universe to the vast expanse of the cosmos. We are now on quest into the truly unknown, hunting for a discovery that will revolutionise our picture of how the universe works. I’ll explain what exactly we are looking for, why this is such a crucial time for particle physics research, and what all this means to our everyday lives!