"A journey to the centre of the sun"

Today  is National Poetry Day, so I was very happy to be spending this evening with Lancashire's (not quite) official Poet Laureate, Dom Conlon. Despite having an appearance on radio this morning and another on TV, this afternoon, he still joined me at UCLan, this evening, to see a lecture by Professor Lucie Green, for which he had very generously bought us tickets. 

The lecture was called "15 Million Degrees: A journey to the centre of the sun" and it was absolutely fascinating. It's hard to recall all of the things that surprised and interested me. The first image that took my breath away was an x-ray photograph of the sun, which was stunningly beautiful, so much more so than the bland photos in the range of visible light.

There were occasional facts that stuck in my mind, like how photons of light, once generated in the heart of the sun, can take 170,000 years to leave. But the part that really took my breath (and Dom's) away was when Professor Green talked about helioseismology, the study of oscillations on the surface of the sun, caused by sound waves within the sun, "millions of notes". Extraordinary. 

There was a good question and answer session afterwards, which, perhaps inevitably, included a query regarding Brexit. It wasn't good news, chums; we are already being excluded. Not out of vindictiveness - these are scientists not politicians - but because of the fact that funding from the UK can't be relied on. Expect an exodus of scientists. 

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