Astrophysics at Keele: the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets

In understanding our place in the universe we need to know how many planets there are, how planetary systems form and evolve, and how many of them are like our Solar System, possibly harbouring life. The best way of studying planets is to find the ones that pass in front of ("transit") their star. By looking for the tiny dips in a star's light caused by a transiting planet, Keele's WASP-South survey has found more transiting planets than anyone else in the Southern hemisphere, and is using them to answer questions about how planetary systems form.

Planets form around young stars, and star and planet formation are intimately connected. Keele will process the data from a very large survey of young stars and clusters of stars, using spectra obtained by ESO's Very Large Telescope, to combine with the unprecedented astrometry soon to be obtained by ESA's Gaia mission. The combination will provide the biggest survey yet of how stars and stellar clusters form and evolve.

The two Magellanic Clouds are the two galaxies closest to our own, so close that they interact with our galaxy, providing an excellent opportunity to study how galaxies affect each other, with collisions and mergers thought to be important factors in explaining galaxies today. Keele's role in the new-generation radio survey of the Magellanic Clouds provided by the GASKAP project will provide the most detailed yet picture of the dynamics and interactions of our Milky way with these two satellite galaxies.

At the cores of galaxies, supermassive black holes can grow by sucking in material from their surroundings. It is now realised that powerful winds generated by the swirling around a black hole can both regulate the growth of the black hole and affect the future evolution of the whole galaxy. A Keele-led program using the latest X-ray satellites studies the X-ray emission generated by the extreme gravity of the black hole to study the black-hole winds and their affect on their environment.

The astrophysics group has a vigorous outreach programme, which benefits from the networks provided by Keele's Widening Participation Division and Science Learning Centre West Midlands and provides benefit to the general public, school children (particularly in the 11-18 age range) and their teachers. We actively enthuse school children, their teachers and the public about STFC science by: taking a planetarium into schools; operating the well-equipped Keele observatory, encouraging both public access and visits from schools; providing adult education classes focused on our research topics; and organising well-attended teacher-training workshops.

In the next grant period we are planning major enhancements to our planetarium activities. We will upgrade its projector system, transforming it into an "exoplanetarium"; develop new planetarium resources based on our exoplanetary and stellar research , which will be widely and freely disseminated to a worldwide open-source planetarium software community; train a chort of undergraduate "Science Mentors" and astrophysics postgraduates to deliver outreach; and take the exoplanetarium into about 30 schools per year, interacting with more than 5000 pupils and their teachers. Our aims are to inspire more children (and their teachers), from an area with a traditionally low HE participation rate, to think about University and science at University level, hence promoting their economic well-being, and showcasing our STFC-funded research.

Book, magazine and newspaper publishers, blog writers and science news websites have all benefited from several press releases and interviews by members of the Keele astrophysics group in recent years. These media events are the result of major discoveries in the areas of star formation, massive stars and exoplanets. Keele will continue to announce major discoveries throughout the forthcoming grant period.

We are developing links with local industry. A Stoke-based SME, who manufacture parts for NASA and ESA astrophysics missions, will be sponsoring an undergraduate Astrophysics prize at Keele and providing careers advice; we in turn will benefit them by assisting them with their public relations and website.