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16 October 2007

Manchester's world-beating telescope

The Kopal Memorial Science Lecture

PLANS to make Manchester the home of the world's most powerful radio telescope are to be discussed at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The Faculty of Science and Engineering is hosting a prestigious lecture on The Future of Radio Astronomy, in association with Manchester Astronomical Society.

The 2007 Kopal Memorial Lecture by Professor Ian Morison of Jodrell Bank, will describe how Manchester is to become home of the design team for the Square Kilometre Array - a 1.5 Billion Euro project to build a radio telescope many times more powerful than any currently in existence.

This means that, allied to the completion of the e-MERLIN array next year, Jodrell Bank will be at the heart of what promises to be a very exciting future for Radio Astronomy.

'Dark energy'

The talk will explain how the Manchester project and other radio telescopes will be able to probe such exciting topics as how the stars and galaxies first formed, how pulsars in orbit around black holes will test Einstein's theories to the limit, how Earth-like planets formed and how the mysterious "Dark Energy" will shape the future of our Universe.

We will even have the ability to search the whole of our galaxy for evidence of extraterrestrial life!

The lecture takes place at 7pm on Thursday 18 October in the Assembly Hall of John Dalton Building at Manchester Metropolitan University.

If you would like to attend, or for more information, please e-mail events@mmu.ac.uk or contact Conway Mothobi, Dept Computing & Mathematics, Manchester Metropolitan University on 0161 247 1644.