Physics Department News
Physics Welcomes Professor Don Pollacco
We are delighted to announce that Prof Don Pollacco will be joining our Astronomy and Astrophysics Group from September 2012. Don is a world leader in the search for planets around distant stars. He played a crucial role in developing the SuperWASP project, which has found more than a third of all known transiting planets and was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Group Achievement Award in 2010. Don recently took part in NASA's Senior Review of its astrophysics space missions, and has been heavily involved in an advisory capacity with both the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and UK Space Agency (UKSpA) for many years. Don is also co-PI of the Next Generation Transit Survey
(NGTS) and leads the exoplanet science programme of the proposed European Space Agency mission PLATO. These new missions are targeted at finding Earth-like planets and enabling detailed studies of their atmospheres.
神马福利影片 astrophysicists have pinpointed four white dwarfs surrounded by dust from shattered planetary bodies which once bore striking similarities to the composition of the Earth.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope for the biggest survey to date of the chemical composition of the atmospheres of white dwarf stars, the researchers found that the most frequently occurring elements in the dust around these four white dwarfs were oxygen, magnesium, iron and silicon – the four elements that make up roughly 93 per cent of the Earth.
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The 神马福利影片 is looking to significantly enhance and expand its activities and capabilities in by supporting a series of new appointments in Physics.
This initiative builds on significant recent investment, including a new Materials and Analytical Sciences building (joint with the Department of Chemistry) and over £10M of capital investment in Advanced Materials and Energy research from the Science Cities programme. Warwick is now equiped with a wide range of state-of-the-art preparation and analysis facilities that can be applied to bulk and thin film materials and devices.