GAM 2018 Blog
- Published: Thursday, April 12 2018 09:00
By Quentin Parker
Under the auspices of Astronomers Without Borders, this year’s Global Astronomy Month focuses on our nearest terrestrial body, our own moon. The moon causes our ocean's tides, affects life in amazing ways from the timing of massive coral spawning in Australia’s great barrier reef, to higher biological rhythms in animals and to theories that life itself arose on Earth because of the effect of the moon. We always see the same face because it rotates once on its axis at the same time it takes to orbit the earth, 27.2322 days. It is new and old, waxing and waning, full and gibbous, brilliant and dark and sometimes, in eclipse, blood red. It can be “super” and occasionally “blue” and it is lovely to behold.
Thinking of the moon seems particularly pertinent in this time of emerging global threats to our climate and societies. Perhaps the moon can be a unifying force across again as it was during the Apollo missions. It is seen across the globe as it goes through its monthly cycle- we are all one under the moon's gaze. We all see when it is full over the course of a day as the earth rotates into its view. It is a constant reminder of a presence beyond our own and its impact on our lives has been and is profound. We have gazed at it, wondered about it, studied it and even visited it but the promise it offered my generation as a stepping-stone to man’s conquest of the rest of the solar system has faded to a distant memory. Perhaps humankind can once more reach to the moon but this time in a more collaborative way and not as a backdrop to an arms race and use it as a unifying force of human endeavor and ambition.
As a child of the 70’s I often used binoculars to examine the moon and its craters and valleys. I also collected “PG tips” tea cards to make albums. One album I avidly compiled in 1971 was called the “Race into Space”. I was enthralled and fascinated by the promise of our future in space. It was a key reason I became an astrophysicist. There would be massive space stations, moon bases and manned missions to mars en-route to us conquering the solar system. These visions were to be achieved by the 1980s! Disappointingly, very few of these space developments have occurred and we haven’t been to the moon since 1972. From our first powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 to the first Jumbo jet flight in 1969 was 66 years and from the German V2 rocket (the first artificial object to technically enter space in 1944) to the first flight of the Saturn V rocket in 1967 and it last flight in 1973 is only 29 years. In the 45 years since we are still launching things into space by what is effectively a controlled explosion, hardly different to the V2 and Saturn V rockets. Where is the game-changing technology that will change the economics of space travel and making it viable to set-up a permanent moon-base? A technological step change is needed coupled with a strong focus and desire to get off this rock and move from the realms of science fiction to reality. For me, the moon is a crucial way station in this process. As I enter the latter part of my career I still hope my boyhood dreams of space exploration and a permanent presence on the moon may yet become reality.
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Quentin Parker obtained a PhD from the University of St.Andrews in 1986 and joined the faculty at the University of Hong Kong in March 2015 to take up the Headship of the Department of Physics. Prior to that Quentin worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (1986-1992), Anglo-Australian Observatory (1992-1999), Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (1999-2002) and then in joint position with the AAO and Macquarie University (2002-2015) where he developed and led the MQ research centre in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astrophotonics. |
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Research activities are mainly but not exclusively associated with Wide Field Astronomy (including being PI for the UKST H-alpha survey), large-scale redshift surveys, low-surface brightness galaxies, supernova remnants and especially Planetary Nebulae. He has also extensive experience as an instrumentalist with multi-object fibre-optic spectrographs and narrow-band filters. He has published more than 420 papers and articles and has supervised and co-supervised a significant number of PhD, MSc and honours students to successful completion and is always keen to attract students. Quentin is currently Associate Dean (Global) within the FoS at HKU and director of the Laboratory for Space research. He has a long-term interest in Chinese Bronze artefacts. |
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