European AstroFest 2018, billed as “The Universe under One Roof”, was held in the Kensington Conference and Events Centre in London. The conference program included talks on dark matter, gravitational waves, asteroid impacts and wintering in White Mars.

European AstroFest 2018 – Astronomy Potpourri

The restored Leviathan of Parsonstown and rainbow. The telescope was built by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. It has an aperture of 72 in (1.8 m) and was the largest in the world from 1845 until the construction of the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker Telescope on Mt Wilson in 1917.

But no pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Photo credit: Richard Fleet, Glows, Bows & Haloes

What the Universe is made of. Or at least, according to our current understanding, what cosmologists think the Universe is made of. No one has yet proposed anything that better explains the observations. And yet . . . .

Gravitational waves were big news in 2016. And news again last year when Nobel Prizes were awarded for their detection. Gravitational waves are a prediction from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity which was published in 1915. In 2015 they were finally detected. And what are gravitational waves?