The graduate student council organized one of their traditional pot luck lunches for Monday, Nov. 28, 2016.

The pot luck was held in the beautiful confines atrium of the Physics and Astronomy building atrium.

There was a wonderful turnout of graduate students, faculty, and staff, who brought an incredible variety of dishes from all over the world.

The challenge was to try to sample a bit of everything.

A nice variety of dessert dishes awaited lunch goers.

Many thanks to grad council members Nirosh Getangama and Sayantan Auddy for making this a success.

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A beautiful, sunny, late fall day greeted visitors to Western’s Fall Preview Day, and specifically the Science departmental displays which were arrayed throughout the atrium of the Physics and Astronomy building.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy was well represented by staff, students, and faculty.

Volunteers from the Physics and Astronomy Department were Abedin Abedin, Peter Frank, Kanthi Kaluarachchi, Dilini Subasinghe, Shayamila Gammage, Shailesh Nene, Bob Sica, Rob Cockcroft, Sarah Gallagher, Eugene Wong, Jeff Hutter, Alex Buchel, Patrick Hatch, Dylan Del Papa, Danielle McFadden, Colin Metrow, Mauli Bhatt, Sarah Scott, Sean Huggins, Sachi Elkerston, Will Hyland, Keegan Marr, Edith Yeung, John de Bruyn, Pauline Barmby, and Henry Leparskas.

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The Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration commenced a 3-week long “analogue mission” called CanMars on Monday October 31, simulating a future Mars Sample Return mission. This is carried out in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency, and features a rover and field team down in Utah and a mission control team here at Western in the Physics and Astronomy Building.

An open house was held for the public on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016.

The setting was the Physics and Astronomy building atrium, under a beautiful clear sky and waxing gibbous moon. Very appropriate indeed.

A few hundred space lovers attended the open house.

A room dedicated to the building and operation of Lego Mars Rovers was a highlight for those young at heart. Others relaxed at the reception which was held in the atrium.

At 7pm a wonderful panel discussion was led by members of the local CPSX mission team, as well as members of NASA, MDA, and The Canadian Space Agency. Londoners could hear first hand from the people who are building and flying the actual science missions to the red planet. The audience was extremely attentive throughout.

The event was a wonderful success.

We warmly welcome new technical staff member Abedin Abedin, who took up his position as ‘Demonstration Coordinator‘ on November 7, 2016.

Abedin recently completed his PhD in Physics under co-supervisors Prof. Peter Brown and Prof. Paul Wiegert. His thesis title was “Formation and Past Evolution of the Meteoroid Complex of Comet 96P/Machholz”.

On Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, Isabelle Cyr successfully defended her PhD thesis.

Prior to the formal examination, Isabelle gave a public talk titled, “The geometry and density of B-emission star disks from statistical analysis and numerical simulations“.

Isabelle’s supervisor was Dr. Carol Jones.