Hertford Astronomy Group

Next Meeting: Wednesday October 9 at 8:00pm Raman Spectroscopy and the search for life in the Solar System Sam Rolfe

Membership details: •£10 per year - renewable at end of July* •Non-members £2.00 first 3 meetings then annual membership subscription due pro rata for remaining meetings. •Free to under 18s and full time students. Proof of status may be required. •Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

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Visitors welcome - £2.00 per meeting

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*Members - no need to book, just turn up with your badge

We, Oct 11

Richard Goodrich

How the 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet (Almost) Destroyed Civilization

2024-25 Programme (subject to change)

Wed, Sep 11

Roger O’Brien

Distance Scales

Wed, Oct 9

Sam Rolfe

Raman Spectroscopy and the search for life in the Solar System

Wed, Nov 13

Robert Connon Smith

So Simple a thing as a Star

Wed, Dec 11

Jill Stuart

The governance of the "Final Frontier"

Wed, Jan 8

Martin Lewis

Planetary Imaging at the Edge

Wed, Feb 12

Quentin Stanley

The Art of (Computer) Modelling

Wed, Mar 12

Mike Foulkes

Eclipses.

Wed, Apr 9

David Southwood

A Decade as an ESA Director

Wed, May 14

Jerry Stone

AGM followed by Is Pluto a Planet? - 10 years since New Horizons flyby.

Wed, June 11

Kevin Fong

Living on the Moon

This meeting will be held at: University of Hertfordshire Lindop Building College Lane Hatfield AL10 9AB (What 3 words: stars.stones.energetic) and simultaneously on Zoom. There is plenty of parking space around the venue which is free after 19:00

The search for life in the universe feels like a gargantuan task, so perhaps an obvious place to start is one of our nearest neighbours, Mars. It is widely known that Mars appears to be an inhospitable place at present, but both macro- and microscopic life lives in the extremes on Earth, so maybe it can live in the extremes of Mars. Sadly, it is likely we would have found macroscopic life on the surface of Mars by now, but microscopic life is still a possibility. However, detecting microscopic life in situ with a lander or rover on another planet is extremely difficult. Issues include potential contamination, reduced precision and accuracy compared to lab equipment on Earth, and repeatability. Raman spectroscopy offers one way to detect life that is being and could be used on missions throughout the Solar System, Sam will explain how it works and what we might expect to find. Sam is a Technical Tutor at the University of Hertfordshire, working at Bayfordbury Observatory for the past 8 years. They completed their PhD at the Open University in Planetary Science working on whether biological molecules could be detected in a simulated Martian environment.