Blog

After having completed a 10-week internship with SPS and Astrobiology, I can highly recommend the experience to anyone who may be interested. I first came across the opportunity on the OU’s OpportunityHub and sent my application into the OU internships team. I was invited for an online interview where I was asked to make a presentation outlining how I would drive engagement to a specific event. Once I started the internship my line managers, Alice and Hannah, were extremely supportive, empowering, encouraging and gave me autonomy over the projects I worked on.

Black holes are one of the most enigmatic cosmic phenomena in our fascinating universe. Most are formed from the remnants of massive stars that have collapsed under their own gravity, but a few black hole types even defy that explanation

If you read last week’s blog, you’ll already be familiar with some of the planets visible at this time of year.

It’s World Space Week and there are some exciting objects visible in the sky this week, not just for night owls but for early risers too. All visible to the naked eye, you’ll be able to see planets, a day moon, constellations and one of the brightest stars in the night sky.

With just one week to go until World Space Week 2023, let’s explore what’s visible in the night sky this week. 

My name is Veli, and I am a 2^nd year PhD student at AstrobiologyOU. This is the second time I am writing a blog post for AstrobiologyOU – my first blog was about my summer internship with the group which morphed into the PhD project that I am currently doing. It has been a truly wonderful journey to get here!

I won’t lie, I was nervous, nervous to leave my 3-year-old for the longest I had yet (a whole week!), and nervous for my first real trip abroad since before I went on maternity leave in 2018 and the pandemic of course… !

This poem is dedicated to my recent findings of novel microbial species from a brine prepared from natural magnesium sulfate crystals, which is chemically similar to the sulfate-rich brines of early Mars.

This week is National Apprenticeship Week 2023, and we’d like to give a BIG shout out to our apprentices. We have two apprentices working for AstrobiologyOU. Weronika is our Microbiology Technician Apprentice. She is working on her Level 3 Laboratory Technician apprenticeship with Tiro. Jitka is our Laboratory Technician and is working on her Level 6 Laboratory Scientist degree apprenticeship with Kent University.

Oh wow, what an experience! Hi, I`m Anthony Scales and I have recently attended a weeklong training with Exeter sequencing service focusing on using Nanopore`s MinION. Though before I get stuck into telling you about the experience, I`d first like to introduce myself as I`m a guest within the University of Exeter. I am a research technician with AstrobiologyOU at the Open University, Milton Keynes, where we aim to address the scientific, governance and ethical challenges associated with astrobiology. To do this we are looking to answer questions within four key themes: