2004 January 9 at 2pm. Happy new Year from all at Astronomy Ireland. NOTE: Apologies for this mailing list being down for approx 2 weeks from Dec. 18 and thanks to the administrators at DCU's Redbrick Society for fixing things over the holiday period. If you know anyone who tried to get added to this list in December please ask them to try again now by going to the link at the bottom of our website: www.astronomy.ie 1. NEW YEAR LECTURER FROM PARIS IS "BEAGLE 2 BOSS"! "Exploring Space at the European Space Agency" This year Prof David Southwood from E.S.A. Paris office will deliver Astronomy Ireland's 2004 New Year Public Lecture. It will take place in Dublin City University (on Collins Avenue, Dublin 9) at 8pm on Monday January 12th. All welcome. Admission 5euro (3euro to members) There is a full write up of the talk on our website at http://www.astronomy.ie/newyr04lect.html Beagle 2 and Mars Express are just 2 of the spacecraft that Prof Southwood is responsible for as the Director of Science at ESA. He also has a probe arriving at Saturn this year, one on its way to the Moon (SMART-1), another scheduled for launch to a comet (ROSETTA) next month and an impressive array of space telescopes in orbit or on the drawing board from the Hubble Space Telescope to its successor. He will talk about all of these and ESA's even bigger plans for the future. You may have seen him on TV over Christmas and on Wednesday this week when he had to deliver what may turn out to be the death knell for Beagle 2 when Mars Express failed to pick up a signal from the British-built lander. There will be another 'good' pass over the Beagle 2 landing area on Monday morning so we should get the very latest update straight from the horse's mouth as it were at the lecture on Monday night. This is obviously a major event for Ireland to have a speaker of this calibre at such a critical time for E.S.A. and a lot of tickets have been sold for the event already so you should get yours from our office/Shop in Artane or at our stand in the RDS (see below) today or tomorrow. It's a fascinating talk so do get a group together and come along. Prof. Southwood will be interviewed on 2FM on Monday on the Gerry Ryan Show (9am-12pm). Tune in, especially if you cannot get to Dublin for the New Year Lecture. 2. RTE want a young person RTE's News dept want a young person to talk about what they think of all the recent Mars exploration for their "news2day" TV news show on Network 2. The show is aimed at 7-13 year olds. Please email info@astronomy.ie if you think you know anyone who would like to go on air? The coverage of the Beagle 2 landing attempt over Christmas was very good and of course when NASA's Spirit rover landed last Sunday the coverage was incredible with NASA receiving a billion hits on its website in just a few days - an all time record for any website. If you haven't already seen the websites start here: www.beagle2.com http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov 3. BBC "Sky At Night" with Sir Patrick Moore This programme was originally broadcast last Sunday night but will be repeated on Saturday January 10th at 12:45pm on BBC 2. January's edition is entitled "Music of the Spheres" and is about sounds from space. You can get details and even watch the programme online at www.bbc.co.uk/skyatnight 4. Astronomy Ireland at Young Scientist Exhibition in RDS Jan. 8,9,10 Come along and see our stand at the 2004 EsatBT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in the RDS, Dublin 4 from 10am-5:30pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday January 8, 9 and 10. Check out over 400 student projects and other exhibitors from robots to computers and of course Astronomy Ireland. Details on www.esatys.com Remember, you can buy your tickets for our 2004 New Year Public Lecture on Jan. 12 at the RDS. Please join Astronomy Ireland online and support our IRISH astronomy magazine: www.astronomy.ie/sub Please forward this notice to everyone you think might be interested. ===== David Moore BSc FRAS, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 5. Editor, "Astronomy & Space" magazine. ASTRONOMY SHOP: open until 6pm Mon.-Sat. Tel (01) 847 0777. Fax (01) 847 0771. www.astronomy.ie (Subscribe FREE to our emailing list) Email: info@astronomy.ie