ASU Astronomy Public Lecture Series
The ASU Astronomy Public Lecture Series, created by the astronomy graduate students, in conjunction with the new ASU Astronomy Club, offers general astronomy topics presented in a 30-45 minute colloquium format aimed toward the general public. Lectures will occur once or twice a month, presented by club members, graduate students, and faculty.
This series is an excellent opportunity for the general public to learn about cosmology, galactic evolution and environments, the birth and death of stars, extrasolar and planetary systems, black holes, telescopes and astronomy in general. By having these at 7 p.m. in the evening, families have the opportunity to attend together and hear an exciting presentation by an enthusiastic astronomer. Roughly every second talk will be followed by the Astronomy Open House in PSH, with telescopes, activities, planetarium tours, meteorites, and more available for the public to interact with.
Lectures will be held in PSF 173 at 7 p.m.
| DATE | SPEAKER | TITLE | ABSTRACT |
| 1-27-2012 | Paul Scowen | Star and Planet Formation Near Massive Stars: What Nebulae Can Tell Us About the Origin of the Solar System | For decades we have admired nebulae as interstellar signposts indicating where the most massive of stars had recently formed. However, such environments also represent an important part of the process of star and planet formation as the winds and radiation from those massive stars cause new stars to form nearby, but at the same time try to destroy them before they are done forming. This picture represents a snapshot of the early history of our Solar System as meteoritic evidence indicates our own Sun formed in such an environment. In this talk we will explore these environments with images from the Hubble Space Telescope and learn about how hard it is to make stars and planetary systems, and have them survive to tell the story. |
| 2-10-2012 | Mark Richardson | Black Holes that Shine: Uncovering a Mystery | A black hole is a region of space that is so densely compact that not even light can escape. Since the first prediction of their existence in the 18th century, black holes have captivated scientists and the public alike. I will discuss the history of black holes, describing their origins and the surprising results from their first discoveries, particularly the unexpected result that they were among the brightest objects ever seen! I will then demonstrate how this is possible, and how the subsequent observations painted a new picture for the evolution of galaxies. |
| 2-24-2012 | Frank Timmes | White Dwarf Supernovae | We'll traverse the frontier of supernova from white dwarf stars by exploring historical yet brand new supernovae, contributions from amateur supernova hunters, the cyber-enabled state of the art, and near-future $1B NASA missions. |
| 3-9-2012 | Karen Knierman | Train Wrecks of Galactic Size: Merging Galaxies and the Stars They Form | We will explore the beautiful displays and weird contortions that happen when galaxies merge. These mergers also host new star formation in their centers as well as out in the far-flung debris of the collisions. Recent studies at ASU using Arizona telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope will be highlighted. |
| 3-30-2012 | Rogier Windhorst | How will the James Webb Space Telescope measure the Epochs of First Light and Galaxy Assembly in the post Hubble era? | The 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is designed to measure the epochs of First Light and Galaxy Assembly, building on significant new lessons learned from the Hubble Space Telescope and its new Wide Field Camera 3 installed by the Space Shuttle Astronauts in May 2009. Significant technical progress has been made on the fabrication of JWST: more than 75% of its launch mass has been built, passed final design, or is being built as of Spring 2012. All JWST's 18 flight mirrors have been gold-coated, and its optical performance exceed specifications. Its four scientific instruments will be delivered to NASA in 2012.
JWST has the potential to revolutionize astronomy after its launch later this decade --- like Hubble has done --- by measuring the epochs of First Light and Galaxy Assembly in great detail. JWST will measure the first population of massive stars when the expanding universe was 10-20 smaller than it is today, and only 200-400 million years old. We will show examples of what deep JWST images will look like, sampling young galaxies in the very early universe, including examples of a gravitationally distorted universe acting like a cosmic house of mirrors. We will also illustrate how JWST will measure star-formation, including new young solar systems, and how it may find water and carbon-dioxide in the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets transiting around nearby stars. |
| 4-13-2012 | Rick Alling | The Transit of Venus Through the Ages | We will briefly look at the phenomena of Venus' transits of the sun from the perspective of orbital mechanics, then we will look at the historic events that followed the development of Astronomy and the history of transit observations. |
| 4-27-2012 | Lawrence Krauss | A Universe from Nothing |
I will describe the revolutions that have taken place in our understanding of the Universe, and of space and time, that suggest that our Universe could have arisen naturally from nothing at all. RESERVE YOUR FREE SEAT HERE Please note: seating will not begin until 6:50 p.m., and the anticipated start time will be 7:15 p.m. Location is PSF 166 |