Speaker Programme 2026

Tue, 13 Jan 26

The rise and fall of the giant planet occurrence rate – Dr Heather Fenwick Johnston, University of Exeter (via Teams)

Giant planets like Jupiter play a key role in shaping the architecture of planetary systems. However, they comprise only a tiny fraction of the 5,000+ exoplanets known today. Giant planets are found most frequently around stars 1.7 times as massive as the Sun, and the occurrence rate drops to zero around stars 2.5 times as massive as our Sun.

Dr Heather’s talk will explore how giant planets form, why they are special, and the rise and fall of the giant planet occurrence rate.

Imaging with Intelligence: How AI can support your astrophotography – Simon Watts ( FAS)

Simon explains how AI can help with astrophotography, covering areas such as planning observing sessions, enhancing images with modern AI tools, and even using AI to assist in controlling equipment.

(this is a recent change to our published programme)

JWST Update – Charles Dixon (FAS)

JWST has arguably been the greatest and most successful observatory ever launched into space, delivering ground-breaking observations, one after another.  Charles brings us up to date with some of its latest discoveries.

Tue, 14 Apr 26

Isaac Newton: His Theory of Gravitation – John Price (FAS)

John takes us back to 1687, when Isaac Newton published “Principia” and single-handedly laid down the laws of physics of motion, optics, and of course gravity, that we still use today.

Tue, 12 May 26

A Universe of Infinities – Colin Stuart

Infinity is a notoriously tricky concept to juggle with. It’s not even really a number and yet it seems to crop up time and again when astronomers try to understand our universe. Did the universe start from an infinitely small speck? Can the universe really be infinitely big? Can there be infinitely many universes in an infinitely big multiverse? Find out in this talk.



Life in the Solar System – Dr Sarah Crick (Mission Astro)

Tue, 14 Jul 26

How To Grow Supermassive Black Holes – Dr Matthew Middleton (University of Southampton)

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are believed to be ubiquitous within the central core of galaxies. But how they formed remains a mystery. It is certainly likely that they grew by a combination of accretion of matter and black hole mergers. The latter is expected to be subdominant, requiring accretion to be the major avenue of growth.

However, observations of the early universe have presented a major challenge, as many SMBHs are observed to be fully grown when the Universe was only a few 100 million years old!

To solve this problem, we are required to understand a regime of accretion dubbed ‘Super-Eddington’. My talk will focus on how this regime of accretion operates, how it can explain the discovery of ‘little red dots’ by the James Webb Space Telescope, and where missing physics is opening up exciting avenues of exploration.

(this is a recent change to our published programme)

Enabling Solar System Exploration – Dr Nicola Baresi, University of Surrey

Since the launch of Sputnik I in 1957, satellites have been pushing the boundaries of space exploration farther and farther away from Earth. The Voyager probes have now exited the solar system, but how did they get there? In this talk we are going to overview some of the key enabling technologies and underpinning principles of solar system exploration, including interplanetary trajectory design, spacecraft propulsion, and deep space navigation.

Examples will be given of how missions from the past have capitalised on emerging technologies to change our perspective of the solar system and pave the way for future, more exciting, more challenging, and more daring spacecraft missions. Two of these upcoming projects are the Martian Moons eXploration mission, led by JAXA, which aims at retrieving pristine samples from Phobos, the largest of the two moons of Mars, and the Moon-Enabled Sun Occultation Mission concept (MESOM), a UK-led mission proposal that seeks to study the Sun’s corona by re-creating total solar eclipse conditions in Space.

Enrichment vs. Destruction in the cradle of the Sun – Dr Richard Parker, University of Sheffield (via Teams)

Most stars form in groups, often called ‘star clusters’, where they regularly interact with their stellar siblings, often in dramatic encounters that alter the orbits of their fledgling planetary systems. Such encounters may be responsible for the very different types of planetary orbits we observe around other stars.

Astronomers think that our Solar System must have formed in a relatively quiescent stellar birthplace, in order for our planetary system to remain stable, and subsequently develop life.

However, some of the oldest meteorites in our Solar System contain evidence that the Sun formed in the vicinity of massive stars, whose intense radiation fields are strong enough to evaporate planets before they have even formed! In this talk, I will discuss the evidence for and against the Sun’s formation in a populous stellar nursery, and what this means for the long-term evolution of Earth, and the formation of life.

The Earth really isn’t Flat – Kevin Pretorius (FAS)

In recent years, we’ve seen a considerable surge in popularity of a variety of conspiracy theories, such as this one, that the Earth is actually a flat, motionless disc, covered by a dome, and surrounded by an ice-wall that keeps the oceans from pouring off the edge.

Proponents of this idea post enthusiastically on social media using arguments about the visible flatness of the horizon, the lack of evidence of the Earth’s motion, and the impossibility of the Earth’s atmosphere existing next to the vacuum of space.

Kevin examines the claims, explains how the relevant physics actually works, and provides volumes of evidence that flat earthers assert doesn’t even exist. He also looks at what social scientists and psychologists have to say about conspiratorial thinking and opines on whether it matters what people believe.

Tue, 10 Nov 26

The Star of Bethlehem, Mark Rumsby (FAS)

As the Christmas season approaches, Mark examines 6 possible astronomical phenomena that have been put forward to explain the famous Star of Bethlehem

Tue, 08 Dec 26

AGM (sorry – members only).