March 2025

The 2025 Irish Astronomy Week “ Exploring our Place in the Universe” will take place from Saturday, 1st March to Saturday, 8th March across Ireland.

In County Mayo Mayo Dark Sky Park and libraries will be hosting the following events.

Library Talks

The talk “ Space: The Final Junkyard” by Anthony McNamee will take place at Westport Library on 4th March at 7 pm.

It will focus on the Kessler syndrome, which introduced the idea of the collisional cascade of space junk and existing orbiting satellites.

The very high amount of debris, including defunct satellites, spent rocket boosters, empty fuel tanks, and debris from accidental collisions that have already occurred, may damage and interfere with satellites, space missions, and the International Space Station.

The aim of the talk is to answer some questions: how to solve the problem, how this happened etc.

Mayo Dark Sky Walk

Mayo Dark Sky is organizing a walk led by Georgia MacMillan, on Friday 7th March at 8:00 pm. The meeting point will be at Letterkeen Brogan Carrol Bothy, which is located in the Mayo Dark Sky Park in Newport.

The walk will last around 2.5 hours and will take place on a flat gravel path for the majority of the route. Participants are advised to wear sturdy shoes and warm clothing.