To register for your free place at this talk please email Katie Weeks (k.weeks@imperial.ac.uk). Tea and cakes will be served from 16.45 in the Physics Common Room, level 8 Blackett Laboratory.
Space is not a total vacuum: everywhere we look, there are small numbers of protons and electrons. These charged particles interact with the magnetic fields around them to produce a plasma, with behaviour far more complex than that found in the fluids like air and water that we know on Earth.
One of the most poorly understood phenomena in fluids is turbulence. On Earth, it causes drag on vehicles, but also helps us stir milk into our tea. In space, turbulence controls the paths of cosmic rays and heats the plasma.
Spacecraft in orbit around the Sun are making remarkably precise measurements of plasma turbulence. Using these satellites, dramatic progress is being made in understanding this important fluid process.
Biography
Following an undergraduate degree at Imperial, Tim Horbury stayed there to undertake a PhD in the Department of Physics analysing data from the Ulysses spacecraft exploring the polar regions of the solar system. He then received a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Imperial from the then Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.
After a postdoctoral position at Queen Mary, University of London, Tim returned to Imperial in 2000 as a Science and Technology Facilities Council Advanced Fellow and was appointed to a lectureship in 2005. He was promoted to Reader in 2006 and Professor in 2010.
Tim’s research interests cover several aspects of space plasma physics, particularly turbulence. He is Principal Investigator of the magnetometer instrument being built at Imperial for launch in 2017 on the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft.