Grayson's Galaxy

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Hello, It's been a while! University work has taken over all my time recently, but semester one and exams are overrrr so I'm back and have some (hopefully) interesting post ideas lined up! :) Last semester I completed a particle physics lab project which I found super super interesting, so I thought I would attempt to explain some of the basic concepts for you! The LHCb detector at CERN This experiment was six weeks long and I completed it with my lab partner. We used data which was collected from the LHCb experiment at CERN. CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and aims to find out what our Universe is made up of. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest particle accelerator and the LHCb experiment is one of four particle detectors conducting experiments. The 'b' stands for a type of particle called 'beauty quark' or 'b quark' as commonly known. (Will discuss quarks more...

⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ As part of a lab project I completed at university last year, I had the chance to work at Jodrell Bank Observatory where I researched and studied pulsars. It was a really interesting project and so I thought I would explain a little about what I learned. The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory  The idea of a neutron star was first proposed in 1933. However, it was neglected until 1967, when Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish first detected a pulsar at Cambridge University. To do so, they used novel radio telescope techniques. Since this time, radio astronomy - which uses radio frequencies to study celestial objects such as stars and galaxies - has advanced hugely, and radio telescopes are what I was working with at Jodrell bank. A stable star can exist due to the electron-degeneracy pressure originating from nuclear reactions (which occur within the star) balancing with the gravity of the star’s mass. When a massi...