Physics is delighted to announce that in the 2018 National Student Survey we have achieved an overall student satisfaction of 91%, which is within the top 5 departments at Warwick. We rank 4^th for overall student satisfaction and 2^nd for Assessment and Feedback, compared to other Russell Group universities with Physics and Astronomy courses.

The Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey showed that 97.3% of students who graduated in 2017 with an undergraduate degree in a Physics course from Warwick are working, or studying, or both, which is the highest across all the science departments within the university. Graduate prospects are also excellent with 87.4% of those in work or study in graduate level work or study.

The government’s 2018 Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset has found that Warwick physical sciences graduates are ranked in the top 5 in the UK for high earnings five years after graduation.

A research team led by members of the Astronomy and Astrophysics group had to wait over 100 days for the sight of the first of confirmed neutron star merger to re-emerge from behind the glare of the sun.

They were rewarded with the first confirmed visual sighting of a jet of material that was still streaming out from merged star exactly 110 days after that initial cataclysmic merger event was first observed. Their observations confirm a key prediction about the aftermath of neutron star mergers.

Commenting on the 'blood moon' phenomenon, Professor Don Pollacco of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, said: “The moon, like all planets, gives out no light of its own, but instead shines by reflecting sunlight. Tonight the moon during its monthly orbit of the Earth will pass through the earth’s shadow. During this period as sunlight can no longer reach the moon you might expect it to be invisible but instead a small amount of sunlight reaches the moon after passing through the Earths atmosphere and this light is then reflected off the lunar surface making it visible to us on Earth.

“As the sunlight travels through our atmosphere on its way to the moon the redder wavelengths pass through relatively unhindered while the bluer wavelength are scattered (thats why the sky is blue) by dust suspended in the earths atmosphere. The red light reaches the moon and is then reflected back to us. So the redness of the moon actually tells us about the conditions in our atmosphere.

“Consequently during a lunar eclipse the moon always appears red. Often the moon will turn a blood red colour and be very striking. Tonights eclipse (if we can see it at all because the weather forecast is not promising) is that the moon will rise in full eclipse. So just after sunset the moon will be visible low down in the eastern sky and already be a blood red colour. The full moon often looks larger when near the horizon (an illusion), so tonights eclipse could look impressive.”

Congratulations to all of our undergraduate and postgraduate students who received their degrees on 24 July!