The Open University

Is Marie Skłodowska Curie still a good role model for female scientists at 150?

7 November 2017

Sometimes I’m glad I’m old(ish) and have made it up the career ladder. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a young woman trying to become established today. Not only are they likely to be saddled with a large debt from university tuition, they must also contend with discrimination and harassment, no […]

The internal ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus could be old enough to have evolved life, finds study

7 November 2017

We recently bade farewell to the Cassini spacecraft, which after 13 years of faithfully orbiting Saturn and its moons was directed to plunge into the giant planet’s atmosphere. The reason for the “grand finale” was to guard against the possibility that Cassini might crash into one of Saturn’s moons – in particular Enceladus. With its […]

£3 million mission to understand the dangers of space weather

1 November 2017

A team of international scientists, including academics from the OU, have been awarded £3 million to develop an instrument to research how the Earth’s atmosphere responds to powerful solar winds. The funding, which is from the UK Space Agency, will support academics collaborating on SMILE (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer), a European Space […]

The Planet Building Mystery

30 October 2017

Open University researchers have been investigating exactly how planet formation starts. Why do we need to know how planets form? Planets form as a by-product of star formation. Similar to asteroids, comets, and our Moon, planets are basically the left-over “junk” that isn’t incorporated into the star itself. However, planets (and other small bodies in […]

What formed the recent Martian landscape? Latest research might have the answer

27 October 2017

Scientists from the OU have discovered a new phenomenon that could explain the long-debated mystery of how recent land features on Mars are formed in the absence of significant amounts of water. Dr Jan Raack explains more: What is this research all about? “Experiments carried out in our Mars Simulation Chamber, which is able to […]

Private companies are launching a new space race – here’s what to expect

4 October 2017

The space race between the USA and Russia started with a beep from the Sputnik satellite exactly 60 years ago (October 4, 1957) and ended with a handshake in space just 18 years later. The handshake was the start of many decades of international collaboration in space. But over the past decade there has been […]

How a new orbital moon station could take us to Mars and beyond

2 October 2017

The dream of a human habitat in orbit about the moon came a step closer on September 27, when NASA and the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) signed up to a common vision for future human exploration. The project, a follow-up to the International Space Station (ISS), involves a facility placed in orbit somewhere between the […]

Students taking part in learning exercise

OU academic shortlisted for innovation in engineering and science

28 September 2017

Associate Director for Academic Professional Development (APD), Dr Anne Adams and her team, have been shortlisted for the WISE Tech Innovation Award 2017 for inspiring technological innovations. The WISE Awards 2017 recognises the outstanding contributions to gender balance in science, technology and engineering, of individuals and organisations. The entry submitted by the all-women team […]

Mexico Earthquake: Expert reaction

20 September 2017

Prof David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University, said: “The epicentre of yesterday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Mexico was about 500 km from the magnitude 8.1 quake of 8 September. There is no direct connection between the two, although they are both consequences of the convergence of the Pacific floor (here belonging to […]

Cassini crashes: it’s time for a new mission to explore the possibility of life on Saturn’s moons

15 September 2017

NASA’s Cassini mission has made its “death plunge” into the swirling clouds of Saturn after 20 years of exploring the planet and its moons. It’s been amazingly successful, making headlines with groundbreaking discoveries throughout its journey. But today the headlines are more like obituary notices, looking back at the mission’s spectacular achievements. Cassini discovered new […]

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Category: Science, maths, computing and technology