Pupils enjoy science talk on the importance of the sun

This term our guest speaker was Mr Kearn Grisdale, a PhD student from The University of Surrey Astrophysics Department.

Kearn spoke to the group of 150 students, staff, parents and visitors about the importance of the sun and why we must study it.

Kearn explained the origin of our sun and the galaxies and how an understanding of this allows us to try and predict the potential fate of our sun and therefore the earth.

He also spoke about how the sun provides energy that we can harness, plus how having an understanding of the workings of the sun may unlock future forms of electricity production; such as Nuclear Fusion.

Kearn explained why studying the universe and our solar system is important and why future endeavours are necessary, whilst also getting across that it is fascinating using phenomena that can be seen such as the northern lights and why these phenomena occur.

He also gave an insight on how we observe the universe and where the observatories are situated to give us the best view of the solar system and beyond.

All the way through Kearn linked what we were seeing and studying to practical models that allowed us to make more sense of our universe and then gave us an introduction to the work that he was doing as part of his PhD project.

Overall the evening was very enjoyable and everyone left getting a real sense of the importance of the sun, and also how very small and fortunate we are to be here in the grand expanse of space!

Report by Mr Stefan Radwanski, head of science. Picture contributed by Glebelands School.