Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation

News

  • ICG outreach in Mexico ICG outreach activities recently reached   Mexico City, where Gianmassimo Tasinato gave a public lecture in one of the main high schools.  A crowded auditorium of interested students listened to the lecture,  curious to see what happened during the first instants of our universe life. The students were  very surprised to know how much we can ...
  • ICG PhD researcher is FameLab UK “wildcard” ICG PhD student Claire Le Cras came second in yesterday’s South East regional final of the FameLab UK competition. FameLab contestants have just three minutes to explain a scientific concept using only the props they can carry onto the stage. Claire wowed the judges in the regional heat by using dance to explain the colours ...
  • New stringent constraints on Dark Energy With the SDSS Supernova Survey now over, Betoule et al. (2014) today provides one of the  “most stringent constraints to date on the nature of dark energy” using a combination of the SDSS and SNLS supernova surveys; only a 5.7% error on w, the equation-of-state of Dark Energy (see above or Fig 15 in paper). ...
  • First Result from Galaxy Zoo Hubble ICG PhD student Tom Melvin has led the first result from the Galaxy Zoo: Hubble project which asked members of public to classify galaxies from public Hubble Space Telescope surveys. Tom measured how the fraction of bars in visually identified spiral galaxies changed with redshift, confirming that at z=0.7 bars are much less common than ...
  • End of an era: Original SDSS is over The final data of the original Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) was published today, bring the end of an era of tremendous discovery. The original SDSS started in 2000 and performed a large-scale survey of the northern hemisphere detecting millions of galaxies and stars. In 2005, the SDSS was extended for a further three years ...
  • Portsmouth SEPnet PhD Scholarships: PhD Grand Challenges 2014 The SEPnet Universities aspire to solve some of the biggest problems in physics. These are the Grand Challenges of today. To advance towards solutions, we have established the Grand Challenge programme which may help fund your research towards a PhD. We’ve a number of challenges and SEPnet PhD Scholarships available, across all our research themes. ...
  • ICG Featured on CCi Live in the Skies The CCi Live Channel from the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Portsmouth decided to do a special show on Friday entitled “CCi Live in the Skies” and featuring content from and interviews with members of the ICG. This tied into the BBC StargazingLIVE event ICG were involved in, as well as ...
  • A One-percent Measure of the Universe Researchers from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), including many members of the University of Portsmouth Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, today announced that they have measured the distances to galaxies more than six billion light-years away to an unprecedented accuracy of just one percent. Their measurements place new constraints on the properties of the ...
  • StargazingLIVE in Portsmouth Over 5,500 members of the public joined amateur astronomers, ICG members and colleagues from other local Universities and BBC presenters for the Portsmouth Stargazing Live 2014 event last night. The event, held at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in conjunction with the BBC is one of only three nationwide events that BBC Learning are running this ...
  • Public Lectures at Winchester by ICG researcher Claudia Maraston held two public lectures on December 11 at 4.30pm and 6.30pm at the Winchester Science Center (previously Intech) in Winchester, entitled “Shining Galaxies in a Dark Universe”. Both lectures were well attended, especially the evening’s one, which featured a nearly full theatre with over 140 attendees. Many young students and teachers were present ...
  • Postdoctoral Researcher in IFU Galaxy Evolution Employment type: Fixed term contract (2 years commencing 1 September 2014, with a possible extension) Employment basis: Full-time Salary: £27,854 – £31,331 Date published: 12 December 2013 Closing date: 3 February 2014 Interview dates: Interviews will be scheduled between 24 and 28 February 2014 The Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG, www.icg.port.ac.uk) intends to appoint a Postdoctoral Researcher with expertise ...
  • Stargazing LIVE in January 2014  The Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation is collaborating with locations at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (including HMS Warrior 1860 and Action Stations) once again to put on a massive Stargazing LIVE event, on Tuesday January 7th 2014.   This year our event was selected by BBC Learning be one of three main national events tied into the ...
  • A Visit from Space makes The News Earlier this year, the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation launched a new free educational outreach activity in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth Education Liaison and Outreach Team (ELOT). “UP for Space: A Visit from Space” has visited five primary schools in the Portsmouth area since June 2013 (St Swithun’s Catholic Primary School, Corpus Christi ...
  • ICG researcher at the Female Knowledge Festival ICG member Claudia Maraston was invited to the first regional festival of “Female Knowledge” in northern Italy. The event, lasting two days and sponsored by the City Council, the regional council, the Illy Caffe’ enterprise and the European Community, aimed at gathering successful female experts in various fields of knowledge, spanning from medicine to literature ...
  • Postdoctoral research positions at the ICG We are now accepting applications for a number of postdoctoral research positions at the ICG. Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Cosmology and Astrophysics – 10010307 Postdoctoral Researcher in Theoretical Cosmology – 10010310 Postdoctoral Researchers in Cosmology and Astrophysics – 10010308, 10010309, 10010312 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Cosmology and Astrophysics – 10010307 External link Employment type: Fixed-term contract (5 years) Employment basis: ...
  • The ICG-PGS Christmas Lecture 2013 The Portsmouth Grammar School and the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth present a free public lecture: “Gravity: From Newton to Einstein and beyond” Dr. Kazuya Koyama, Reader in Cosmology, ICG, University of Portsmouth The Universe is expanding at an increasing rate, but is this really due to some mysterious “Dark Energy”, or were these great ...
  • NAOC postdoctoral positions in collaboration with ICG Portsmouth Under a new scheme, applicants are invited to apply for postdoctoral positions hired by Division of Galaxy and Cosmology, National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) in collaboration with Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG), University of Portsmouth in the UK. Both NAOC and ICG are institutional members of Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) (http://www.sdss3.org/future/), and ...
  • The UK-Japan 150 year anniversary, Science, Technology and Innovation Symposium – Astronomy & Space Science ICG members are involved in the UK-Japan 150 year anniversary, Science, Technology and Innovation Symposium – Astronomy & Space Science. Bob Nichol will give a lecture on Galaxy Survey and Cosmology. Kazuya Koyama has been involved in the organisation. The symposium will take place from13:00 to 19:00 on Friday, 6th December 2013 at the Embassy of ...
  • Portsmouth wins £2million in new research grants ICG researchers have been awarded £2million in two major new grants. Over €2million has been won by Will Percival for his research into dark energy and the growth of large-scale structure in our universe. The award from the European Research Council will support a team of researchers including two postdoctoral researchers and several graduate students over ...
  • ICG and Applied Physics become supporters of the Institute of Physics’s Juno Code of Practice We are happy to announce that the “Physics Group” at Portsmouth (which consists of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, and the members of the School of Environmental and Earth Sciences who contribute to the Applied Physics course) have been accepted as supporters of the Institute of Physics’s Juno Code of Practice. Project Juno was ...
  • ICG Hosts a Meeting of the Fellowship of the Royal Society for the encouragment of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Last night ICG hosted an event in the RSA Fellowship South East region series Ideas in Education. Dr. Karen Masters and Dr. Jennifer Gupta showcased the range of Zooniverse citizen science projects (including Galaxy Zoo which ICG have had a longstanding involvement in) and led a discussion on how they can be used to enrich ...
  • Fellowships at the ICG The ICG welcomes candidates interested in applying for research fellowships to be held in Portsmouth. A variety of potential fellowships are available, including Royal Society University Research Fellowships, Ernest Rutherford Fellowships (STFC), Marie Curie (EU) fellowships, and possibly national fellowships from the candidate’s country of origin. Expressions of interest for fellowships should be addressed to an ...
  • ICG at Bestival 2013 Three members of the ICG spent the first weekend of September 2013 at the Bestival music festival on the Isle of Wight engaging with a slightly different audience to usual! ICG Outreach Officer Jen Gupta and PhD students Cullan Howlett and Andreas Papadopoulos were joined by visiting student Lise du Buisson to run a stand ...
  • ICG members involved in the new Intech Space Lecture series Bob Nichol will deliver the first lecture of the new Intech Space Lecture series tomorrow evening (September 11th 2013). Bob will give a popular talk on “Supernovae, Dark Energy and Nobel Prizes”. He is not the only ICG member giving such a lecture during the series as Claudia Maraston provides a lecture entitled ...
  • ICG article contributes to raise impact parameter of international Journal The article “Stellar population models at high spectral resolution” by ICG researchers Claudia Maraston and Gustav Stromback published in 2011 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society was acknowledged for “significantly contributing to raise the overall journal impact parameter by 13%, from 4.9 to 5.521”. This has good implications on REF as ICG ...
  • ICG involvement in new Symposium of the International Astronomical Union. Claudia Maraston of the ICG is part of the Scientific Organising Committee of a Symposium of the International Astronomical Union that was successfully selected. The Symposium entitled “Galaxy Masses as Constraints of Formation Models” will be held in Oxford in July 2014 (http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/iau311/). It will be the occasion to celebrate the career of Roger Davies, ...
  • PGS student work experience at ICG Fergus Houghton-Connell, a sixth form student from Portsmouth Grammar School, has been gaining work experience at the ICG for last 4 weeks. Fergus (center) has been helped by Chris D’Andrea (right), Andreas Papadopoulos (left) and (sometimes) Bob Nichol (photographer). Fergus spent his time looking at images of supernova host galaxies as well as making color ...
  • ICG researchers involved in largest 3-D map data release from SDSS Many ICG researchers are proud to be part of the tenth data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) . This release gives astronomers, and the public, access to the largest 3-D map of the Universe .
  • Work experience students visit the ICG The ICG recently hosted a number of students on short work experience visits to learn what it is like to be a researcher in astronomy. Ellie Waddington (Yr 11 Tunbridge Wells School for Girls), Vince Parker, Tom Knapman (both Yr 10 from Crofton School in Stubbington) and Liam Stigant (Yr 12 Portsmouth Grammar School) ...
  • Tenth Data Release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III is happy to announce Data Release 10. DR10 includes hundreds of thousands of new galaxy and quasar spectra from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which ICG members have been heavily involved in, and in addition to all imaging and spectra from prior SDSS data releases. This release also features the ...
  • Applied physics graduation
  • Secondary school pupils think bigger with the ICG 22 key stage 3 pupils from local schools joined ICG members Jen Gupta, Claire Le Cras and Rafal Szepietowski for the Think Bigger workshop last week (3 July), organised by the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth Education Liaison and Outreach Team. The morning began with an introduction talk that ...
  • ICG at the Houses of Parliament As part of the successful SEPnet programme, members of the ICG were invited to celebrate their success with colleagues and MPs at the Houses of Parliament on Monday July 8th 2013. The event was also to celebrate the successful launch of SEPNet2, the next phase of this network of physics departments across the ...
  • National Astronomy Meeting 2014 We are pleased to announce that the National Astronomy Meeting 2014 will be held here in Portsmouth from 23rd to 26th June. The conference website can be found at http://www.nam2014.org/.
  • Pupils feedback to “A Visit from Space” St. Swithuns pupils have expressed their gratitude to the ICG scientists who ran the first “Visit from Space” (see http://www.icg.port.ac.uk/node/3107), writing letters for each activity that was carried out. Very touching!
  • A visit from space: a new educational outreach activity from the ICG Claudia Maraston and Daniel Thomas assisted by ICG members Jen Gupta, Emma Beynon, David Wilkinson and Edd Edmondson, have launched a new educational outreach activity for local primary schools. This programme called “A Visit from Space” will bring scientists into the classroom, making it easier for schools to access the resources and expertise of the ...
  • ICG members inspire A-level students at the Cosmology Masterclass Around 50 A-level students from Portsmouth and beyond visited the University of Portsmouth yesterday (20 June) to attend the 2013 Cosmology Masterclass hosted by the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation. The morning started with an “Introduction to Cosmology” lecture by ICG’s Dr Karen Masters, giving an overview of the cosmology that students may encounter in their ...
  • Astronomical Friends of ICG and UoP on BBC South Today Our friends and colleagues from the Hampshire Astronomical Group (HAG) and Dept. of Mathematics were featured on BBC South Today as part of “Sally’s Travels” across the region and her visit to Clanfield Observatory. Many UoP students do astronomical projects using these telescopes and we have a long relationship with this observatory and HAG. ...
  • Staff football champions – again! Pompey EMC – a team made up of ICG researchers and other staff in the Faculty of Technology – have won the University of Portsmouth staff 5-a-side league for the second time in 12 months. They beat Djangos 7-6 in a cup-final thriller earlier today, having defeated the university’s Sport+Recreation department 5-4 in last week’s ...
  • John Craven receives CBE for services to higher education John Craven, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, has received a CBE in the Queen’s honours for his services to higher education and the City of Portsmouth. John is a long-time supporter of the ICG and we are part of his legacy as he heads for retirement this Summer. We wish him well. Read ...
  • Year 9 student spends half-term at the ICG as a learner scientist Benjamin Taylor, a year-9 student at Chichester high school for boys, was on placement at the ICG the whole half-term week and was very busy with several different projects. He learnt about Galaxy Zoo, he visited the Sciama supercomputer (see picture, with PhD students David Wilkinson and Claire Le Cras), he discussed science and started ...
  • PhD Studentships at the ICG for 2013 The Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth is one of the leading cosmology groups in the UK. We are a member of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), COSMOS (the UK cosmology supercomputer consortium), and SEPnet (South-East Physics Network) Astrophysics. PhD studentships starting in 2013 will be ...
  • Research Development Funding Award of the University of Portsmouth to ICG researcher Claudia Maraston of the ICG has been awarded an RDF Grant of the University of Portsmouth as PI of a project entitled ‘‘Establishing leading roles in the major space science projects of the next decade: the Extremely Large Telescope and EUCLID”.
  • ICG Member Organises Specialist Discussion at the Royal Astronomical Society ICG Research Fellow, Dr. Karen Masters has been involved in the organisation of a Specialist Discussion on the topic of “Morphology in the Era of Large Surveys” to be hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society tomorrow (Friday 10th May) in London. Dr. Masters will also speak at the event, along with ICG PhD student Tom Melvin, ...
  • ICG researcher talks at the British Astronomical Society Claudia Maraston gave a talk on Saturday, 27 at a meeting of the British Astronomical Society, http://britastro.org/baa/, held at the South Downs Planetarium in Chichester. The meeting hosted 100 attendees spanning a range of professional figures, with a common interest in Astronomy. Maraston explained basics concepts of galaxy evolution and the state-of-art in galaxy studies ...
  • 2013 ICG/SEPNet Student Outreach Award The 2013 ICG/SEPnet Postgraduate Student Outreach Award has been awarded to Timothy Clemson, for significant effort in outreach activities during his time at ICG, especially for activities with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Branch of the British Science Association.
  • EPSRC Grant to Study the Economics of Crowd-Sourcing A team led by Dr. Joe Cox of the Portsmouth Business School, and including Dr. Karen Masters from the ICG as well as researchers from Oxford, Manchester and Leeds Universities, has won £750,000 from EPSRC to establish why people give up their time to help scientists with projects like Galaxy Zoo The group will collaborate ...
  • Professor Will Percival’s inaugural lecture ICG’s Professor Will Percival gave his inaugural lecture last week. He spoke about his work mapping the Universe using galaxy surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, as well as discussing if it would be possible to travel to these distant galaxies in the time that he has been a professional astronomer. A ...
  • Successful stargazing at Gunwharf Quays ICG astronomers held a successful Astronomy in the City event at Gunwharf Quays last night as part of National Science and Engineering Week. About 60 passers-by were able to spot the Moon and Jupiter through gaps in the clouds using a variety of different telescopes, with the help of Emma Beynon, Edd Edmondson, Jen Gupta, ...
  • Exploring the “anti-lensing” effect A new study, examining how galaxy images should appear distorted in the Universe, has been published by a team including ICG researchers: “Antilensing: the Bright Side of Voids”, Krzysztof Bolejko, Chris Clarkson, Roy Maartens, David Bacon, Nikolai Meures, and Emma Beynon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 021302. Usually, the large voids in the Universe are ...

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