Dublin(15/6) and Donegal (17/6) - 'Colossal Object one Million Million Million Miles Across Found

15 June 2009 - 17 June 2009

'Colossal Object One Million
Million Million Miles Across Found!'

An object a million million million miles across, the largest ever discovered in the Universe by a living person, was discovered by a now World famous, Dutch schoolteacher, and she is coming to Ireland to tell her story.

As part of her World tour, Hanny Van Arkel will come to Ireland next Monday, 15 June, to tell us about her phenomenal discovery. It all began in 2007 when a website cataloguing images of galaxies, Galaxy Zoo, was created, a web phenomenon had begun!This is a highly successful internet project that all Irish people can contribute to. Fundamentally it is a world wide tool for scientists and astronomers alike to research galaxies and define their status, a highly cost effective way of approaching this time consuming but necessary process.
'Armchair astronomer' Hanny from the Netherlands wasn't even interested in astronomy before the advent of Galaxy Zoo, a fact which makes night-sky enthusiasts roll their eyes heavenwards. She only got into the programme by chance. On the forum she posted a link to one of her galactic discoveries, which was rapidly nicknamed 'Hanny's Voorwerp'. No-one knew what the object was.The mysterious object gained a lot of media coverage as a community of confused scientists pointed their telescopes to the sky. At the moment, Hanny's Voorwerp is believed to be an ancient "light echo".
Hanny is perhaps as famous as her discovery, research on the 25-year-old herself brings up over 26,000 google hits and she has her own blog <http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/dna/h2g2/A42130351/ext/_auto/-/http://www.galaxyzooblog.org/category/hanny/> at the Galaxy Zoo forum. Hanny will come to Dublin (June 15) and Donegal (June 17) to tell her story about this unknown object, what it is, and how citizen science plays an important part in developing our understanding of the universe.
"It's not every day you get to meet someone who has discovered an object with a one and eighteen zeros after it, miles across!" said David Moore, Chairman of Astronomy Ireland. " An ordinary, mild mannered schoolteacher with the biggest object in the Universe named after her."
'Galactic Anomalies' public talk will take place on Monday, 15 June at 8pm in Trinity College Dublin and Wednesday, June 17 in Letterkenny IT. Book your tickets online at www.astronomy.ie <http://www.astronomy.ie/> or by calling (01) 847 0777.
For further information go to www.astronomy.ie/outreach <http://www.astronomy.ie/outreach>