| Astrophysics: background science |
All of astrophysics depends on the some of the same bits of physics, because most of what we see in the sky is very (sometimes very, very) hot, so most stuff is in the forth state of matter: plasma. We also need to know about the very high energy particles we call cosmic rays and how Einstein's theory of relativity affect things that move as speeds close to that of light. Here you will find a few notes relevant background science, including plasmas, relativity, measuring time, cosmic rays and so on. |
| HiSPARC resources |
The HiSPARC project is a Europe wide collection of cosmic ray detectors located at universities, colleges and schools. All the data from every detector is assembled in a database in the Netherlands from where it can be downloaded and analysed by students who can experience the pleasures and problems of doing real science with seriously capable instruments. This page includes a general description of HiSPARC and a collection of other material assembled to aid the students who I have mentored on HiSPARC projects. |
| Big Data Astronomy |
Most of the World's astronomical observatories now feed all their observations onto databases, from where it can be accessed by both professional researchers and members of the public - this even includes every photograph and spectrum from the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact a lot of modern astrophysical research relies on systematically searching through these vast archives, and the professionals often ask the public for help (as with the Galaxy Zoo project). This note identifies a number of ways of getting hold of the raw data for your own research projects. |
The projects below are all feasible for well motivated students. The project specifications are, of course, not completely explicit, and some of them are open-ended in the sense that enthusiastic students can extend them and bend them in different ways. Students will need to do a good deal of their own thinking, planning and problem solving. Most, however, have led to successful CREST Award submissions at my local schools, with the assistance of a modest amount of face-to-face mentoring (usually three or four 1-hour meetings throughout the project).
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Measuring the distance to the things we can see in the sky is fundamental to all astronomy, and we have to start with the closest objects, and build outwards from there. By cooperating with another school (preferably on a different continent) you will be able to use the fundamental astronomical technique of parallax to measure the distance to the Moon. This project involves astrophotography through a small telescope, using software (or other methods) to calibrate and measure astronomical photographs, and then performing trigonometric calculations to work out the distance from a known baseline and a measured angle. More able students will be able to derive the baseline length from geographical coordinates. (A reasonable approximation is not difficult, but the exact solution requires a good deal of thinking and the easiest route to follow involves converting everything to 3D cartesian coordinates.) For less mathematically inclined students, I have prepared an explanation of the calculation that can be turned into a spreadsheet. (I have also coded an Excel spreadsheet you can use if you wish.) This is suitable for Yr10/11s and for Silver CREST awards. |
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Have you ever wondered how professional astronomers use the spectacular images that they capture with the World's great telescopes? How do you turn a photograph into science? It turns out that we can learn a great deal about galaxies from studying their colours, and in particular the way colour varies across the face of a galaxy. This "SDSS Workshop" document gives a set of detailed instruction for identifying and downloading images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and processing them with SAOImage DS9. It has been successfully used to run a two-hour intensive workshop with Yr 10s as an introduction to a more extended Silver CREST project. I have used this project with Yr 10s. |
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| Sunspots |
The observation by Galileo of spots on the surface of Sun was one of the first indicates by science that the heavens were not perfect. It caused a storm of controversy. Sunspots are still very much a topic of active research for today, because activity on the Sun's surface can directly affect our every day lives. The twisted magnetic fields around sunspots are the cause of solar flares and "coronal mass ejections" which can damage satellites and mess with the Earth's magnetic field enough to sometimes shut down electricity grids. This is a project that can be pursued at different levels of sophistication, with or without practical observations through a small telescope. |
| Distance and Age of Globular Clusters |
Globular clusters are both beautiful and scientifically important, because they can tell us about the size of the Milky Way. All the stars in a cluster are born at the same time, so they also represent snapshots of the progress of stellar evolution. You can download data captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and repeat the classic experiment by Harlow Shapley first done just over 100 years ago to work out the distribution in 3D space of all the visible globular clusters. Except that using Hubble data we can now do it much more easily and far more accurately. This is also the first step on a route that allows astronomers to work out the age of globular clusters and hence a lower limit on the age of the Milky Way. This is a challenging project, suitable for Yr 12/13. It involves learning how to search the Hubble Space Telescope data archive to identify globular cluster observations, downloading the information, then handling a large amount of data listing the brightness and colour of hundreds of thousands of stars. Students will need to learn a number of new computing techniques including more sophisticated methods of data visualisation capable of making sense of thousands of data points. |
| How Many Black Holes in the Galaxy? |
Massive stars live fast and die young, sometimes leaving behind a black hole. Such stars are relatively rare but have gone through many generations since the galaxies started to form. So, how many black holes (and neutron stars) might be wandering around our Milky Way? Can we detect them? Are they astrophysical important for the evolution of the galaxy? This would be a challenging project for a Yr 12 student who want to see how high-school mathematics and physics can be used to do a serious investigation with important implications. It could meet the criteria for a Gold CREST Award. |
| What Powers Quasars? |
Can we use A-level maths and physics to do calculations that tell us something about the energy source of quasars and the most powerful extragalactic radio sources? A challenging project for Yr12/13 students who see themselves going on to study physics/astrophysics. |
There are some resources to help with running project for the British Science Association CREST Awards.
I have been a STEM Ambassador in the UK for many years, doing many science and technology related activities, but for most of that time I have been giving aid to a couple of local school who encourage their Yr 10-13 students to undertake projects for the British Science Association (BSA) CREST Awards. My experience is that these projects are extremely valuable for students, giving them insight into the real life experience of doing science and engineering. They are also very rewarding for STEM Ambassadors because we follow the progress of the students and see the positive effect that we can have.
I have been involve in projects as different as design studies for robots working inside nuclear reactors, constructing a real microlight aircraft, analysis of cosmic ray data and using images from professional astronomical telescopes.
There are lots of ways of doing projects that would achieve CREST awards, but over the years I and the schools I aid have developed a particular approach that works for us. It may work for you.
Although it sometimes happens that teams come up with their own project suggestions, we like to present students with project suggestions that they can use as a framework to develop in their own direction. (Where students do come up with their own ideas, there is usually a discussion process of turning the initial - often vague - suggestion into a specific, achievable target.) We have found that the students are helped by a written brief for a particular project and also more general guidance on how to organise themselves in teams to complete the work and write it up in the form expected by CREST assessors. One must take care to strike a balance between giving just enough direction to ensure that the project is a success but allowing students to choose their own directions and exercise creativity: making mistakes and learning from them is part of the deal. We have found that the great majority of our teams achieve their target awards - though rarely without serious struggles. That is as it should be!
| General Guidance on doing CREST Projects |
There are common problems in every project. How do we get ourselves organised? How do we plan? How do we write reports? At the end of projects, students often confess that they wish they had paid more attention to the advice we give here. (But that is part of the learning process!) |
| Engineering Projects |
We found that a lot of students were keen on engineering design projects that presented a different type of challenge to anything experienced during their school work. |
| Maths and Computing Projects |
Some students like a more theoretical rather than a practical challenge. I include some unusual applications of maths and computing, such as the "generative art" as exhibited on the rest of this website. |
| Astronomy/Astrophysics projects |
Astronomy is full of exciting ideas, and we are in a golden age for public access to a vast range of high quality astronomical data, I have mentored projects that involve using the raw images from professional telescopes, cosmic ray data from international arrays of detectors and purely theoretical calculations on black holes. There are more than enough suggestions for every taste. |
| Other Physics Projects |
Anything that does not fit into one of the above categories. |
As a mentor, I usually visit the school to present the outline of the suggested projects and explain some of the general principles of organising a team to get the work done on time. Sometimes, depending on the project, we do a more extended workshop in which we explore some of the resources that are available. After that, the responsible teacher in the school provides regular support, but I am usually invited to visit for mentoring sessions perhaps three or four times during the progress of the projects. Visit 1 is usually to make sure they understand what they need to do, and have got started; Visit 2 is to help with overcoming specific technical difficulties; Visit 3 is usually about how to bring things to a conclusion. I also visit to hear a final presentation on the project because this is a good experience for the students and is often a very rewarding experience for me. (Looking back, most teams are amazed by what they have achieved, and often we are too!) I will also answer questions forwarded from the teacher by email, and on request will visit to help specific teams with particular technical problems.
The material here includes general guidance that is relevant to any project and also some specific project suggestions in different areas. (These naturally reflect my own technical interests and those of the schools that I work with. By training I am a theoretical physicist and astronomer, and by profession a nuclear engineer.)
Notes relating to the HiSPARC Cosmic Ray Project and other Astrophysics projects.
| The forth state of matter is the dominant form of visible material in the universe. (We don't known anything about dark matter, of which there is about five times as much as in visible material.) The way plasma behaves is fundamental to understanding the way many astrophysical objects work. | |
| Generation of Cosmic Rays | Although this brief was aimed at students doing the HiSPARC experiments, the generation of high energy particles in astrophysical situations is important to all branches of modern astrophysics (for example, in understanding why supernova remnants emit radio waves). |
| What Is The Time | Astronomy started long, long ago as a way of time keeping. It is still an important part of astronomy in order to make observations and relate them to astronomical coordinate systems. There are more types of time that you probably imagine! |
| Statistics or How Not To Fool Yourself | Analysis of almost any type of scientific data involves using statistics, because it is all too easy to see what you want to see in the data. The only way to avoid misinterpretation is the use of statistics. |
| Relativity for Cosmic Rays | This was a brief aimed to explaining why cosmic ray generated mesons reach the ground when their decay half lives are very short. However, some knowledge of relativity is important for all of modern astrophysics. |
| Faster-Than-Light Travel is Paradoxical | An explanation of why instantaneous jumps of position can lead to time-paradoxes, according to Einstein's well established Theory of Relativity. |
| How to Run a CREST Project |
A digest of practical experience. This is mainly aimed at teachers and CREST mentors. It is not the only way to run CREST projects, but it happens to be a way that has worked for me and a couple of teachers with whom I regularly cooperate. We have tried to learn from our experience, because not every `good idea' went as well as we hoped it would. Keep in mind, however, that you need to be flexible because different groups of students work in different ways. We usually like to do projects that require team work, because this gives a good flavour of the way scientists and engineers work in the real World. However, there are some strong students who like to work on their own, or in pairs, wanting more challenging projects, or things they have dreamt up themselves. We try to accommodate them. |
| How to Do a Project |
General advice on organising a team for a small project. It is based on 40 years of running small R&D projects in industry and it works. I usually find in the wrap-up meetings at the end of the project that student teams wish they had paid more attention to this advice. You have been warned. See also:
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| How to Write a Project Report | How to go about structuring a CREST project report. I usually find that I have to keep reminding students that this guidance exists and really will help them. It is based on a working lifetime of writing scientific reports and the same principles generally apply whether you are doing it for a CREST award, a university assignment, a PhD or an Industrial R&D report. It is an important life skill that is worth acquiring early. |
| How to do a Presentation | Many projects require the team to prepare a presentation explaining what they have achieved. Here is some generals advice on how to produce a presentation that will engage with an audience. |
| How to Solve Engineering Problems | Some general approaches to problem solving. Ways you can stimulate your brain into being a bit more creative. |
CREST Awards are organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in order encourage young people to get involved in "stretching extra-curricular research projects". There are three levels of award, Bronze, Silver and Gold, each level requiring increasing amount of work and sophistication, and covering the age range from 11 to 19.
Articles mainly relating to my work as a STEM Ambassador.
Material relating to CREST projects.
Descriptions of potential CREST projects.
General guidance applicable to all types of CREST project.
Talks about science, maths and engineering.
Previously completed STEM projects.