Edinburgh scientists are taking part in the most detailed survey of the Universe ever undertaken. The aim of the five-year programme is to shed light on Dark Energy – the mysterious force thought to be pushing galaxies apart and causing the Universe to expand at an accelerating rate.
Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has been designed and built by an international collaboration of scientists. It is taking part in its first fully functioning experiment, from its position atop the Mayall Telescope in Arizona.
One of DESI’s crucial components is its array of 5,000 robotic fibre-optic eyes that swivel in a choreographed dance, each focusing on a distant galaxy. In perfect sky conditions they will enable the instrument to measure the light of 5,000 galaxies in around 20 minutes.
The instrument’s near complete range of components is designed to point automatically at preselected galaxies, gather their light and then split it into various bands of colour. This will precisely map their distance from Earth and gauge how quickly the galaxies are moving away from us.
When formal observations begin in 2020, DESI will peer deeply into the Universe’s infancy and early development – up to 11 billion years ago – to create the most detailed 3-D map of the Universe ever produced.
Over its five year run, DESI will repeatedly map the distance to 35 million galaxies and 2.4 million star-like quasars. The mapping of the galaxies will teach scientists more about Dark Energy and quasars, which are among the brightest objects in the sky.
Overall, it will provide precise measurements of the Universe’s expansion rate and tell scientists exactly how this rate has varied over time. This could bring them closer to figuring out the mechanism for the acceleration of the expansion.
Global alliance
An international team of more than 500 researchers and 75 institutions including Edinburgh’s Institute for Astronomy have collaborated on the project for more than a decade.
Edinburgh’s expertise stems from the Institute’s work on the influential Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) for which the School of Physics & Astronomy's Professor John Peacock was jointly awarded the prestigious Shaw Prize for Astronomy in 2014.
Professor Peacock commented:
DESI will define a new state of the art for studying the large-scale structure of the Universe. This has always been a scientific area in which the UK has been strong, and we’re very happy to be part of this wonderful project.
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The interdisciplinary work involves collaboration from a team of scientists, including husband and wife team Dr Bartek Waclaw (from the School of Physics and Astronomy) and Dr Justyna Cholewa-Waclaw (from Adrian Bird’s lab in the School of Biological Sciences). Their discovery shows the existence of a novel mechanism of gene regulation.
Different types of animal cells (muscle cells, liver cells, neurons etc) produce different proteins in order to perform their function. This process, called gene expression, is tightly regulated: even a small increase in the production rate of a particular protein can have dramatic consequences (disease or even death).
The research team investigated the role of a particular chemical molecule called MeCP2, an abundant methylated-DNA binding protein, on this process. MeCP2 is present mostly in the brain and too much or too little of it causes autism-like disorders. A combination of experiments and mathematical modelling reveals how this chemical is regulated. MeCP2 acts as a "roadblock" for the enzyme RNA polymerase that moves down the DNA expressing genes. Traffic jams of RNA polymerases created behind MeCP2 molecules slow down gene expression. This slow-down is tuned to produce just the right amount of proteins required for neurons in the brain to work correctly.
As well as showing the existence of a novel mechanism of gene regulation, this work suggests that replicating this mechanism by using drugs or gene therapy could have therapeutic implications for patients with certain types of autism.
Astronomers have pieced together the cannibalistic past of the neighbouring large galaxy Andromeda, which has set its sights on our Milky Way as the main course.
The galactic detective work found that Andromeda has eaten several smaller galaxies, likely within the last few billion years, with left-overs found in large streams of stars.
This study was led by Dr Dougal Mackey from the Australian National University (ANU) and Professor Geraint Lewis from the University of Sydney, and involves a team of researchers from across the globe, including Professor Annette Ferguson and Professor Jorge Penarrubia from the School’s Institute for Astronomy.
The international team also found evidence of more small galaxies that Andromeda gobbled up even earlier, perhaps as far back as during its first phases of formation about 10 billion years ago.
Dr Mackey from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics reported:
The Milky Way is on a collision course with Andromeda in about four billion years, so knowing what kind of a monster our galaxy is up against is useful in finding out its ultimate fate. Andromeda has a much bigger and more complex stellar halo than the Milky Way, which indicates that it has cannibalised many more galaxies, possibly larger ones.
The signs of ancient feasting are written in the stars orbiting Andromeda, with the team studying dense clusters of stars, known as globular clusters, to reveal the ancient mealtimes. By tracing the faint remains of these smaller galaxies with embedded star clusters, they team have been able to recreate the way Andromeda drew them in and ultimately enveloped them at the different times. The discovery presents new mysteries however, with the two bouts of galactic feeding coming from completely different directions.
Professor Lewis said:
This is very weird and suggests that the extragalactic meals are fed from what’s known as the ‘cosmic web’ of matter that threads the universe. More surprising is the discovery that the direction of the ancient feeding is the same as the bizarre ‘plane of satellites’, an unexpected alignment of dwarf galaxies orbiting Andromeda.
Professor Annette Ferguson commented:
This is a very interesting result that we will have to work quite hard to understand. It demonstrates how much information about the past lives of galaxies lies buried in their remote outer parts.
The study, published in Nature, analysed data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey, known as PAndAS.
The team involved institutions from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, France and Germany.
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Visit the Postgraduate Open Day to find out about our MSc programmes and PhD opportunities
On 13 November, academic staff, current students and alumni will be involved in a number of events including:
• MSc and PhD information sessions
• talks on student life
• tours of the facilities and labs.
The University is also running talks on careers and funding, and tours of accommodation and sports facilities.
To find out more, visit:
An international team of astronomers have made a historic discovery, detecting gas molecules in a comet which has tumbled into our solar system from another star.
It is the first time that astronomers have been able to detect this type of material in an interstellar object. The discovery marks an important step forward, as it will now allow scientists to begin deciphering exactly what these objects are made of and how our home solar system compares with others in our galaxy.
Comet Borisov was discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in August. Observations over the following 12 days showed that it was not orbiting the Sun, but was just passing through the Solar system on its own path around our galaxy. By 24 September it had been renamed 2I/Borisov, the second interstellar object ever discovered by astronomers. Unlike the first such object discovered two years ago, 1I/'Oumuamua, this object appeared as a faint comet, with a surrounding atmosphere of dust particles, and a short tail.
A team of colleagues, including Dr Colin Snodgrass from the School’s Institute for Astronomy, used the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands to detect the gas in the comet.
Astronomers at the observatory pointed the giant telescope at the comet low down in the morning sky between 6am and 7am last Friday. Passing the faint comet light into a spectrograph enabled the astronomers to measure how much light the comet was emitting as a function of wavelength, or colour. The spectrum allows them to detect individual types of gas by their spectral fingerprints. The data was received at midday, and by 5pm that evening they knew they had successfully detected gas for the first time. The gas detected was cyanogen, made of a carbon atom and a nitrogen atom bonded together. It is a toxic gas if inhaled, but it is relatively common in comets.
Combining these spectra with filtered images of the comet obtained with the TRAPPIST-North telescope in Morocco, the team also measured the amount of dust being ejected by the comet, and placed limits on the size of the central nucleus. Preliminary analysis based on the amount of gas seen coming off the nucleus suggests that it is likely that much of the surface is active, in contrast to typical short period comets.
The team concluded that the most remarkable thing about the comet is that it appears ordinary in terms of the gas and dust it is emitting. It looks like it was born 4.6 billion years ago with the other comets in our Solar system, yet has come from an - as yet - unidentified star system.
As the comet approaches the Sun it will become brighter and more visible to astronomers. The team will follow 2I's evolution as it travels through our Solar System. In comparison, astronomers have a shorter period to study other comets, as was the case with 'Oumuamua, before it became too faint.
The team consists of Alan Fitzsimmons (Queen's University Belfast), Olivier Hainaut, Cyrielle Opitom, Youssef Moulane and Bin Yang (European Southern Observatory), Karen Meech, Jacqueline V. Keane and Jan T. Kleyna (University of Hawai'i), Emmanuel Jehin (Universite de Liege), Marco Micheli (European Space Agency), and Colin Snodgrass (University of Edinburgh).
The European Space Agency approved a space mission earlier this year that may visit a future interstellar visitor. Dr Colin Snodgrass in the team is also Deputy Principal Investigator on the ESA Comet Interceptor, due to be launched in 2028.
Colin Snodgrass commented:
This new discovery is very exciting for Comet Interceptor. Although we can't reach comet Borisov, it shows that interstellar comets can be discovered on their way into the solar system, which gives us more hope that we could visit one.
Prof Arthur Trew has stepped down as Head of School after 8 years. As Prof Jim Dunlop takes the helm, he tells us about his vision for the School.
Prof Jim Dunlop has a number of priorities for the School. For students, this includes creating a sense of community and ensuring appropriate facilities are in place. For staff he has plans for greater collaboration across the professional service teams and academic colleagues, and to streamline activities to reduce some of the administration burden. “Many of my first tasks however will be determined by requirements relating to the research excellence framework exercise”, the 2021 assessment on the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.
Prior to this tenure, Prof Dunlop held the post of Head of the Institute for Astronomy for 6 years, growing the Institute to cover broader areas of astronomical research and an increased range of PhD opportunities. He has gained valuable experience negotiating the Institute’s vision alongside competing School priorities and University requirements, while maintaining a successful collaborative relationship with the UK Astronomy Technology Centre with which the Institute shares the Royal Observatory site.
Jim is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and the Institute of Physics (FInstP). Throughout his time as an academic, he has been awarded funding by the STFC (Science and Technology Funding Council) and ERC (European Research Council) and received the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. His research focuses on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology - the study of the Universe on the largest scales, and over all of cosmic time, however he has long had a broad interest in all areas of physics and astronomy.
He wants to ensure students and staff have the chance to be the very best in their fields and departments, and to continue strengthening the School’s position as a leading institute for physics and astronomy in terms of research, teaching, industrial exchange and community engagement.
I have every confidence that together we can achieve this vision, not least because we have a committed team of staff and students who have the ambition to succeed in all that they do.
Scientists lead international project to build the world’s first space rock mining devices which use bacteria to recover minerals and metals from rocks on the Moon and Mars.
Astronauts will test the devices on board the International Space Station, following the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday 25 July from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral. Rock mining in space could open up a new frontier in space exploration by giving astronauts the resources they need for long periods in Space, whether on the Moon, Mars or asteroids.
Scientists based at the University of Edinburgh have developed 18 matchbox-sized prototypes, called biomining reactors, to test how low gravity affects the ability of bacteria to extract materials such as iron, calcium and magnesium from space rocks. Eighteen of the devices will undergo tests on the space station, which involve exposing basalt rock to the bacteria, before they are returned to Earth to be analysed in a lab.
Professor Charles Cockell, of the School of Physics and Astronomy, who is leading the project, said:
This experiment will give us new fundamental insights into the behaviour of microbes in space, their applications in space exploration and how they might be used more effectively on Earth in all the myriad way that microbes affect our lives.
The ‘BioRock’ experiment is led by the University of Edinburgh, with the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency, and is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, part of UKRI. The project involves researchers from across Europe, including institutions in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. It is the second UK-led experiment to take place on the space station, after the ‘Worms in Space’ experiment launched in December 2018.
The experiment at the International Space Station will also study how microbes grow and form layers – known as biofilms – on natural surfaces in space. The findings could have numerous applications on Earth, including in the recovery of metals from ores using the biomining process and the study of how microbes form biofilms that have enormous implications for industrial and medical processes.
Dr Rosa Santomartino, of the School of Physics and Astronomy, who is leading the study of the rocks when they return, said:
Microbes are everywhere, and this experiment is giving us new ideas about how they grow on surfaces and how we might use them to explore space.
Congratulations to Prof Wilson Poon who has been awarded the Sam Edwards Medal and Prize for his outstanding contributions to the fundamental study of condensed matter physics, statistical physics and biophysics using model colloidal systems.
Prof Poon is known internationally for his groundbreaking research on colloid physics. In the early 1990s he was one of the first scientists to recognise the potential of combining hard-sphere colloids with depletion interactions to create model systems with fully tuneable interactions. Using these systems, Prof Poon has worked together with collaborators and addressed fundamental questions in condensed matter physics such as the nature of the liquid state and of kinetic arrest in glasses and gels.
From around 2005, Prof Poon began working on biophysics. Since then his work on active particles, including both bacteria and synthetic colloidal swimmers, has provided impetus for theory development in the frontier area of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and thrown light on practically important biological phenomena such as the growth of biofilms. He has also recently conducted pioneering work on the rheology of dense, non-Brownian suspensions, an industrially very important but poorly-understood class of soft materials.
In the last five years alone, he has published 13 high impact papers in these new research areas. Some of these have originated from industrial collaborations through the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP). Set up by Poon in 2012, ECFP has now worked with more than 40 companies in multiple sectors, demonstrating the practical utility of ‘model systems’ and the fecundity of industrial collaborations for generating basic science.
The Sam Edwards Medal and Prize is one of the Institute of Physics’ ‘Silver Subject Medals’ and is awarded annually to recognise and reward the highest quality research and application of physics.
New analysis suggests a natural origin for our first interstellar visitor, ‘Oumuamua
Early reports of ‘Oumuamua’s odd characteristics back in 2017 led some to speculate that the object could be an alien spacecraft, sent from a distant civilization to examine our star system.
First spotted by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 telescope located at the University of Hawaii’s Haleakala Observatory, the object defied easy description, simultaneously displaying characteristics of both a comet and an asteroid.
Astronomers named the object 1I/2017 U1 and appended the common name ‘Oumuamua, which roughly translates to “scout” in Hawaiian. Researchers had a few weeks to observe and collect data on ‘Oumuamua before it traveled beyond the reach of Earth’s telescopes.
New analysis however strongly suggests that ‘Oumuamua has a purely natural origin.
A research team led by scientists at the University of Maryland’s Department of Astronomy, along with input from collaborators from across the US and Europe, including the School of Physics and Astronomy’s Dr Colin Snodgrass, reported their findings in Nature Astronomy.
Observations have confirmed that ‘Oumuamua is red in color, has an elongated, cigarlike shape and an odd spin pattern—much like a soda bottle laying on the ground, spinning on its side. While it appears to accelerate along its trajectory—a typical feature of comets—astronomers are puzzled to find no evidence of the gaseous emissions that typically creates this acceleration.
There are a number of mechanisms by which ‘Oumuamua could have escaped from its home system. For example, the object could have been ejected by a gas giant planet orbiting another star. According to theory, Jupiter may have created the Oort cloud—a massive shell of small objects at the outer edge of our solar system—in this way. Some of those objects may have slipped past the influence of the sun’s gravity to become interstellar travelers themselves.
The research team suspects that ‘Oumuamua could be the first of many interstellar visitors, and look forward to analyzing data from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) in Chile, which is scheduled to be operational in 2022 to discover more on such visitors. The LSST is a major international project led by US astronomers, physicists and engineers. The UK is one of the major international partners in LSST, with UK involvement funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and coordinated by astronomers at the University of Edinburgh.
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The European Space Agency (ESA) has just announced that its latest mission, Comet Interceptor, will visit a comet from the very edge of our Solar System.
Exploration of comets
ESA has a long history of exploring comets, beginning with their Giotto mission to comet Halley in the 1980s, and most recently with the ground-breaking Rosetta mission, which was the first spacecraft to land on a comet in 2014.
It is hoped that the Comet Interceptor mission will enable scientists to get, for the first time, a glimpse of a pristine fragment left over from the formation of our Solar System, or possibly even a visiting comet from another star entirely before the heat of the Sun erodes its surface.
Comet flyby
As this mission will involve making the first visit to a ‘new’ comet coming into the inner Solar System, to do this, it has to do something very unconventional in space exploration – it has to be designed and launched before its target is discovered. This makes a comet flyby, already a challenging manoeuvre, an even more difficult mission.
Comet Interceptor does this by hitching a ride into space with the Ariel space telescope, which ESA selected last year to study the atmospheres of planets orbiting around distant stars. This telescope will go to place in space where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Sun balance to produce a stable parking location. In the meantime, astronomers on Earth will make use of the powerful new Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently under construction in Chile, to scan the sky for an incoming comet in the right orbit. When it is found, ESA will calculate a trajectory for the spacecraft to intercept it, and Comet Interceptor will fly past the comet at high speed, returning images and measurements of the comet’s composition to Earth.
Collection of data
Comet Interceptor is actually three spacecraft in one – as it approaches the comet it will release smaller probes. These small probes will make a daring close approach to the comet’s icy nucleus, braving a high speed encounter with the dust and gas spewing from the comet, which at the likely speeds involved (up to 80 km/s) is like flying through a hail of bullets. The probes will send back data to the main spacecraft at a safer distance, which will relay the results back to scientists on Earth, along with the measurements made by its own long range instruments. The main spacecraft and one of the smaller probes will be provided by ESA, with the Japanese space agency JAXA providing the other small probe, reusing some of the technology they are using in their current asteroid mission, Hayabusa 2.
International collaboration
This mission is led by scientists from University College London, Dr Colin Snodgrass from the School of Physics and Astronomy and an international team from Europe, Japan and the USA.
Dr Snodgrass recently joined the university as part of the ‘City Region Deal’ investment in Data Driven Innovation and is based at the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.
He reported:
The announcement of this mission is incredibly exciting, and comes at just the right time as we seek to establish a new research group in comet science in Edinburgh. The mission will be a focus for these activities, which will also provide opportunities to collaborate with other researchers in space-related areas across the university, and with the booming local space industry around the city and across Scotland.
The IfA is already leading UK contributions to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will be necessary to discover an approaching comet with enough warning time for the mission to reach it.
Photo: Comet Interceptor concept (credit: ESA)
