Jocelyn-bell-burnell
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Chris-impey
Chris Impey
Simon-ings credit lydia-nicholas
Simon Ings

Why Space is for Everyone

Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Chris Impey chaired by Simon Ings

Wednesday, 20 March 2024

12:00pm

1 hour

Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre

£7 - £13.50

Astronomers Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Professor Chris Impey discuss how efforts to bring thinking from a greater diversity of backgrounds can enhance astronomy and provide insight into the universe and the search for life in space.

Bell Burnell is a well-known astrophysicist who discovered the first pulsars whilst studying at university.  She is a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Institute of Physics. Her writing is included in a new anthology The Sky is for Everyone: Women Astronomers in their Own Words. She has written about the challenges she has faced as a woman astronomer and about the need for greater diversity in astronomy. At Cambridge, she discovered pulsars, a previously unidentified type of star. The subsequent Nobel Prize went to her male supervisor. She later used the award of the £2.3 million US Breakthrough Prize to institute the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund to encourage greater diversity in physics by assisting PhD physics students from underrepresented groups.

Impey is a US-based astronomer who has written award-winning popular science books including Beyond: The Future of Space Travel and Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes. In his latest, Worlds without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity, he looks at astrobiology and the prospect of humans living on another planet. And he asks whether space could provide salvation for a human race facing existential threats here on Earth. Impey has written widely on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in research grants in the US. He has also written a novel, Shadow World.

Discussions are chaired by novelist, science writer and Telegraph contributor Simon Ings, author of Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds.

Owen Mumford Ltd are supporters of the festival’s science and medicine programme and the festival’s annual award for science and innovation.

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The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Cultural Relations Platform Supporter of the festival's Voices of Europe programme Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Pusey House Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine