Jodrell Bank Alien is the alter-ego of Eamonn Kerins, an astrophysicist at The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics. He leads a team at Manchester that is studying exoplanets – planets around other stars. He is a leading expert on the use of gravitational lensing to find exoplanets, a technique that uses Einstein’s theory of Relativity. Eamonn also co-leads an international survey, SPEARNET, that is detecting atmospheres around exoplanets using a global telescope network.

Eamonn is a frequent contributing expert to print and broadcast media on the topic of exoplanets and the hunt for alien life, including for outlets such as Newsweek, the BBC and HuffPost UK.

Talk: The Jodrell Bank Alien’s Guide to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is one of the great pillars of modern physics, yet it seems alien to many of us. So who better to explain it than an alien? Jodrell Bank astronomer Eamonn Kerins, in the guise of Jodrell Bank Alien, will take us on an accessible and light-hearted tour of the basic ideas behind the Einstein’s ground-breaking theory, showing how Relativity shapes both the Universe and our everyday lives.