Dallas Campbell, Danielle George, Monica Grady, Matt Taylor & many more join our inaugural science line-up.

We are thrilled to announce a galaxy of science’s brightest stars with more than 150 experts and academics on site across the weekend debating and illuminating some of the most important and fascinating topics in their fields.

Key speakers inlcude:

TV presenter Dallas Campbell who has presented several cutting edge programmes including Voyager: Beyond the Final Frontier – the story of NASA’s epic interplanetary missions to explore the outer solar system & beyond, and Stargazing Live where he reported live from the Soyuz rocket launch site for Tim Peake’s journey to the International Space Station.  Dallas will be talking about the planet Mars and telling the story of the spacesuit, from its post-war beginnings to the cutting-edge technology that will sustain future astronauts in the far reaches of the solar system.

Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering at the University of Manchester. Having become only the sixth woman in 189 years to present the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2014, Danielle will be talking about smart machines – including ALMA, the array of telescopes high in the Atacama desert – and how the huge amounts of data they generate are helping us see space better than ever before.

Professor Monica Grady CBE of the Open University will present the dauntingly named The End of the World is Nigh (ish) – an insight into how the world began, what the end will look like, and how we use information from meteorites to accurately make these predictions.

Dr Matt Taylor – project scientist for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft – will tell the story of this remarkable mission to intercept a comet, and drop a lander onto its surface. He will provide all the latest updates and explain what we are learning from this incredible mission.

ESA’s Professor Mark McCaughrean will also be on hand to tell us about the amazing range of European space missions flying now and being launched in the near future. One of the most radical steps forward in studying the Universe was made earlier this year: the detection of Einstein’s gravitational waves.

Leading expert in astrophotography and BBC Sky at Night presenter Pete Lawrence will guide the audience through a spectacular tour of some of his best and most well-known pictures of the Universe, as well as help with advice on stargazing. 

Throughout the weekend scientific themes will also be explored by heavyweights of the arts: electronic duo Air will introduce a screening of Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), the world’s first ever sci-fi film, with the new soundtrack they recorded for it, Erica Wagner will be in conversation with Professor Teresa Anderson about brilliant author Alan Garner, with a rare public appearance and book signing with Alan himself, Jez and Andy Williams (Doves/Black Rivers) will demonstrate how they worked with Jodrell Bank to become the first band to bounce a guitar riff off the Moon, and Andrew Smith, acclaimed author of Moondust, will talk about meeting every man who’s walked on the Moon.

Bluedot is supported by the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), Europe’s largest interdisciplinary science meeting taking place for the first time in Manchester 23-27 July 2016. As part of this collaboration ESOF has curated its own mini-series of talks and performances at bluedot including The National Graphene Institute’s composer in residence – Sara Lowes – who will discuss the making of the Graphene Suite, a six movement piece mixing different musical styles and nuances – as well as perform a number of extracts with orchestral accompaniment; Professor Phil Diamond, the director of the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope exploring the first stars and galaxies, and CERN’s incredible Cosmic Piano, an electronic instrument devised by particle physicists based at the Large Hadron Collider. When a cosmic ray passes through one of four separate detector pads of the Cosmic Piano, it triggers a musical note and a colourful flash of light. The rays arrive in random intervals, and once they’re combined with modern jazz notes some very interesting polyrhythmic jazz is created.

For full lineup of speakers head to our Areas page and filter by ‘Hands on Science’ and ‘Talks’