Newswise — What: Academics from Queen’s University Belfast will host a new, interactive exhibition ‘Marvelling at the Skies: Anglo-Saxon Comets and the Quest for Planet 9’, exploring mankind’s understanding of the cosmos in the Middle Ages, and whether it provides further clues on the whereabouts of ‘Planet Nine’.
The exhibition, which is taking place at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, has also been selected to be presented in London at the first British Academy Summer Festival in June 2018, as one of the best funded research projects in the UK.
It is part of an interdisciplinary research project led by Dr Marilina Cesario, Senior Lecturer from the School of Arts, English and Languages and Dr Pedro Lacerda, Lecturer from the School of Maths and Physics at Queen’s, entitled ‘Before and after Halley: Medieval Visions of Modern Science’.
Dr Cesario was one of six researchers from across the UK to win and receive an APEX award, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the UK’s leading academies including; the British Academy, the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Engineering for cross- disciplinary research excellence.
Speaking ahead of the launch, Dr Cesario said: “This study has challenged the conventional view that obscure celestial occurrences, as they appear in English, Irish, Western European and Russian Chronicles from the 9th to the 12th centuries are to be understood simply as literary devices employed to express eschatological and prognosticatory concerns.
"It has demonstrated that they are indeed the results of genuine astronomical observations, reflecting the interest of the Anglo-Saxon clergy in cosmology and their understanding of the heavens.”
The exhibition will combine records of comets from Anglo-Saxon sources with contemporary images of comets (from NASA, the New York Times and The Northern Ireland Amateur Astronomy Society (NIAAS) and take visitors on a cosmic journey from the earliest contemporary description of a comet in England in the year 891 under the period of Alfred the Great, to the sighting of a hazy green-hued comet Lovejoy in 2013. The exhibition will be accompanied by music inspired by comets orbits and sound of the spheres.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. Suitable for all ages.
For more information, please visit: http://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/medieval-visions-of-modern-science/
When: The exhibition will run from Tuesday 1 May – Sunday 3 June, 2018. A public lecture and launch of the exhibition will be held on Wednesday, 2 May 2018 from 7.00 – 9.00pm at the Ulster Museum.
To register for the public lecture and launch event, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/marvelling-at-the-skies-anglo-saxon-comets-and-the-quest-for-planet-9-public-talk-tickets-45099947156
Where: The Belfast Room, Ulster Museum.
MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES: Media are invited to attend a public lecture and launch of the exhibition on Wednesday, 2 May 2018 from 7.00 – 9.00pm at the Ulster Museum. Dr Marilina Cesario and Dr Pedro Lacerda are available for interview. Interview bids to Zara McBrearty at Queen’s Communications Office on: (028) 9097 3259 or [email protected].
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