The Open University

Asteroid sharing Earth’s orbit discovered – could it help future space missions?

4 February 2022

David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at The Open University writes for The Conversation about the asteroids that share Earth’s orbit. Research has shown that the Earth trails an asteroid barely a kilometre across in its orbit about the Sun – only the second such body to have ever been spotted. It goes round the […]

OU wins UK Space Agency funding to grow regional space activity

2 February 2022

The Open University (OU) is one of 10 organisations to be given a boost from UK Space Agency’s (UKSA) regional funding package. The funding comes after the Government published its landmark Levelling Up White Paper, exploring how new policy interventions can improve opportunity and boost livelihoods across the country as we recover from the pandemic. […]

Local MP meets with TreeView Research Team at Milton Keynes campus

1 February 2022

Ben Everitt MP visited The Open University campus in Milton Keynes to meet with the STEM academic team behind TreeView. As MP for Milton Keynes North, the OU campus is located within Mr Everitt’s constituency and he met with academics to discuss the TreeView project in more depth last week (28 January). TreeView aims to […]

New study finds some flowers unchanged for 100 million years

31 January 2022

An international research team has discovered 100-million-year-old fossil flowers preserved in amber, showing that some flowers found living today in South Africa have remained unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. The flowers, discovered by experts from The Open University, Qingdao University, and others, are nearly identical to those of modern Phylica species, which are […]

The Open University’s Natural Sciences degree is accredited for excellence

24 January 2022

The Society for Natural Sciences has announced a group of institutions whose degree programmes they have accredited, including The Open University (OU). The accredited programmes have all been evaluated against the Society’s framework. This provides recognition for offering outstanding quality interdisciplinary science education, providing students with excellent learning opportunities and skills development to prepare them […]

Innovative project aims to reduce flood risk sustainably on a global scale

24 January 2022

A new global service has been launched to provide near-real time monitoring of surface water at a significantly lower cost compared to existing technologies. The Landscape Senor-Based Monitoring Assessment using Remote Technologies (SMART) project is comprised of experts from The Open University, University of Stirling, Cobra Collective CIC and the North Rupununi District Development Board. […]

Rogue planets: how wandering bodies in interstellar space ended up on their own

18 January 2022

Dr Joanna Barstow Eberhardt, Ernest Rutherford Research Fellow at The Open University writes for The Conversation about rogue planets. We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the Solar System. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental image would probably include a parent […]

PhD student’s part in the excavation of the Rutland ‘sea dragon’

10 January 2022

Open University research student, Emily Swaby was at the centre of an exciting excavation – which has unearthed the largest, most complete marine reptile skeleton ever found in Britain, at the Rutland Water Nature Reserve. She describes the uncovering of the skeleton, the fossilised remains of a 10m-long sea predator called an ichthyosaur which is […]

Meteor glowing as it enters the Earth's atmosphere

Don’t look up: several asteroids are heading towards Earth – here’s how we deal with threats in real life

7 January 2022

Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at The Open University writes for The Conversation about the new Netflix film, “Don’t Look Up” and what would happen if this happened in real life. Don’t look now – but we are currently experiencing a rash of stories about a forthcoming global catastrophe. But in a […]

Explore our world’s fascinating flora in the BBC/OU series, The Green Planet

6 January 2022

Legendary nature historian, Sir David Attenborough will offer a stunning insight into Earth’s plant life in a new series co-produced by the BBC and The Open University. The first episode of the five-part series, The Green Planet, airs on 9 January at 7.00 pm on BBC One and will be available on BBC iPlayer shortly […]

OU News

Category: Science, maths, computing and technology