Earth, A Cosmic Spectacle - A Panel Discussion & creative writing workshop

Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle/ Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion and Creative Writing Workshop

Louise Beer, UCD College of Science and Mayo Dark Sky Park Artist in Residence, invites panellists Professor Lorraine Hanlon, (astronomy) Professor Padraig Dunne (physics) and Associate Professor Patrick Orr (paleobiology),Dr Edith Kubik (planetary geochemistry), to reflect on how their research shapes the way they understand Earth, the climate crisis and our place in the cosmos.

Moving between the formation of planets, the history of life and cosmic and deep time, the discussion will ask how placing our own lives within these immense scales of time might shift the way we value the living world and how we think about the climate and biodiversity crises.

Following the panel discussion, the audience will be invited to reflect on what they have heard through writing or drawing a postcard. These responses will become part of the growing archive of Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle and will be included in Louise’s exhibition at Mayo Dark Sky Festival 2026.

The project Earth, a Cosmic Spectacle explores deep time, contrasting Earth’s slow evolution with the rapid changes of the Anthropocene. Gathering reflections from astronomers, biologists, geologists, and high school students, artist Louise Beer uses photography, sound and discussion to connect audiences emotionally to Earth’s history and climate crisis. 

Louise works closely with scientists to explore how understanding the universe’s 13.8-billion-year history can deepen our awareness of the cosmic significance  of the climate crisis. Through digitally manipulating photography, she combines images of Earth and space to juxtapose the long, slow development of life, the fleeting nature of a lifetime, and the accelerating pace of the climate crisis. Accompanied by a soundscape of birdsong and cosmic recordings, Louise places Earth’s natural sounds from the local environment within a universal framework.

At the heart of Louise’s work is engaging with the public to make complex scientific and environmental ideas accessible, and to show their relevance to our lives. She works to invite the viewers of her work to experience a care connection to the environment, helping audiences feel deeply linked to the universe, and Earth’s deep-time history and future, through science and art.

Schedule

09:30 -10:00 - Introduction to Earth a Cosmic Spectacle - Artist in Residence Louise Beer

10:00-10:40 - Panel discussion

10:40-11:00 - Writing workshop and reflection

The Panellists

Prof Lorraine Hanlon is Full Professor of Astronomy at UCD and Director of UCD’s Centre for Space Research. Her main research interests are in high-energy astrophysics, gamma-ray bursts, multi-messenger astronomy, robotic telescopes, and space instrumentation. Lorraine was Chair of ESA’s Astronomy Working Group and a member of the ESA Space Science Advisory Committee between 2019 and 2023. She has served as science advisor to the Irish delegation to the ESA Science Programme Committee since 2011 and is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the European Southern Observatory. She is a former trustee of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Chair of the INTEGRAL Users’ Group. She is the Endorsing Professor for EIRSAT-1, Ireland’s first satellite, a CubeSat that was developed by an interdisciplinary team of UCD students and staff under ESA’s ‘Fly Your Satellite!’ programme.

Prof Padarig Dunne has over 30 years’ experience in laser-plasma spectroscopy, much of it in soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy to determine atomic structure and dynamics. He has co-authored over 100 refereed publications and a similar number of conference publications. He has been Head of School and Graduate School Director in UCD and is currently Academic Lead on the Science Phase III capital project to complete the O'Brien Centre for Science. In September 2023,he started as principal investigator on the UCD component of the ERC Synergy project 101071865-HEAVYMETAL, which runs to August 2029. This project investigates the origin of the heavy elements in the Universe.

Prof Patrick Orr is a palaeobiologist with varied research interests. His principal research areas have been the taphonomy of exceptionally preserved fossils (those in which the tissues that usually decay quickly after death are preserved); the skeletal taphonomy of biomineralised tissues, in particular the remains of fossil vertebrates; and, how study of trace fossils and ichnofabrics (the structures produced by organisms as they burrow into sediment) helps us understand the ecology of palaeoecosystems. A growing area of interest is the application of conservation palaeobiology to improve understanding of the impact of recent environmental change of anthropogenic origin on shallow marine ecosystems in the northern Atlantic.

Dr Edith Kubik is a Research Ireland Pathway fellow at the School of Earth Sciences at UCD. She uses a combination of isotope geochemistry, experimental petrology and thermodynamical modelling to study planetary formation and differentiation. Before joining UCD in 2025, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut (University of Bayreuth) and developed a new multianvil method to study isotopic fractionation in geological materials under high-pressure conditions applicable to the interior of fully grown terrestrial planets. Before that, she did her PhD at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in the Cosmochemistry team and studied the timing of the Earth's volatile delivery as traced by moderately volatile elements. She obtained both a BSc and a MSc in Geosciences from the University of Brest (Université de Bretagne Occidentale).