United Kingdom Travel and Tourism: Day 10 in the United Kingdom

Today was the day we were going to watch the hockey tournament. It wasn't the same one we were going on Day 8; this time, we were going to watch the finals, maybe even some of the quarter finals. The tourney wasn't until 3:00, so we had some time to kill in the morning. Everyone ate the same breakfast as before, to be honest, some of us were getting tired of it, but we were too lazy to go eat breakfast somewhere else (we should though before we leave to go home). We looked online and found a free tour of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, so we decided to go and see what it was all about. We took a tour of RAL Space, and saw many things including the Mid Infra-Red Instrument (MIRI), Atacama Large Milimetre Array project (ALMA), and the Milimetre Wave Technology Facility (MWT). There was a second tour of their International Space Innovation Centre (ISIC), but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go. MIRI is a science instrument module that will be launched into space and gather data for scientists. It's called MIRI because it has a camera and a spectrograph that sees light int he mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, wavelengths that are too long for human eyes to see. It will allow scientists to "see" distant galaxies, newly forming stars, and faintly visible comets. ALMA is basically an array of radio telescopes in the Atacama desert of Northern Chile. The project is an international partnership between countries all over the world, so although we didn't get to see the actual things (which was a bummer), we saw project designs among other things. Theoretically, a signal from the sky is captured by two or more antennas which are combined in order to analyze the signal and obtain information about its source (whether it's a star, planet, or galaxy). Combining radio waves collected by several antennas can produce images. ALMA needs to be so precise to operate, it's electronics and all 66 antennas must work in perfect synchrony, with a precision of one millionth of a millionth of a second! The MWT facility was actually very interesting. All MWT is is a scanner that uses millimeter wave energy to detect items, and we saw a lot of scanners in use. They're most commonly seen in airports, where they'll scan people and luggage to check for concealed illegal objects. There are two types, active and passive. Active scanners direct the wave energy at the subject and then "read" the reflected energy. Passive systems read only the raw energy that is naturally emitted. Airports usually use active millimeter wave scanners. After a very educational tour, we finally got back and was pumped up to go see the hockey tournament, at Whitgift School. It was interesting because it was an indoor competition, that meant no ice skates, and no roller blades either! The game is played with a small ball, rather than a puck. There is also a lot of physical contact, which is to be expected in a game such as indoor hockey. We looked up the rules, and they were so specific that they even said that the lighting had to be a certain level! As we were watching, all of us were surprised by the ferocity and speed the players had on both teams. Every shot, every steal was so engaging. We had the pleasure of staying and watching the grand finals between Exeter and Rossall. Rossall won barely with a score of 3 - 2. After an exciting day, we went to the nearby Alberts Table to eat dinner. We got the English Veal and spelt lasagne with mushroom sauce (courtesy of Ryan), Ravioli with English spring vegetables, cauliflower and vegetable roasting juices. For dessert, we had caramelised lemon tarts with Kentish raspberry, blueberris and Cornish clotted cream. It was a great day, and everyone went back to the hotel feeling tired yet satisfied, as we started to wrap up our trip in the UK.