Physics Department News
Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence
Congratulations to Mark Newton, who was commended for a WATE 2018, and Daniel Mayoh, who was commended for a WATE PGR.
Dr Daniel Bayliss comments on the discovery of 'the building blocks of life' on Mars
Commenting on the discovery of ancient organic molecules on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover, Dr Daniel Bayliss, assistant professor in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick, said: "Today we learnt of the breakthrough discovery of organic compounds on Mars. This is so exciting because these compounds could be formed by living organisms. The quest now will be to try to find out the origins of these compounds. Evidence for life on Mars may tell us how easy or hard it is for life to start on other planets, which has far reaching implications for life elsewhere in our Galaxy.”
University Award for Astronomers
Congratulations to the Astrophysical Transients team of Andrew Levan, Danny Steeghs, Ryan Cutter, Ben Gompertz, Joe Lyman, Sam Oates, Elizabeth Stanway and Krzysztof Ulaczyk as runners-up in the 2018 University Awards, for their detection of electromagnetic light from merging neutron stars, triggered by gravitational wave signals. The team's research has already appeared in 15 papers, enabling the origin of the heaviest elements to be ascertained and providing a new route to measuring the expansion of the Universe.