Keep up to date at the new homepage of our lecture series: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/astronomy/publictalks.html
As part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, we are hosting a series of public lectures occurring monthly for the rest of the year! Come and listen to professional scientists from the University of Nottingham discuss hot topics in modern astronomy! You can keep up with the lectures on our facebook page!
The next lecture:
The Violent Lives of Galaxies
Dr. Meghan Gray
18th February 2010
6-7 pm
Maths & Physics Building (B1)
University Park Campus
Nottingham
(Map)
ABSTRACT: I will discuss the work I do as part of a large international collaboration that uses some of the most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space to understand galaxy evolution. In particular, we are trying to answer the question: when it comes to the processes that shape galaxies, what is more important -- nature or nurture? We are trying to understand just how much a galaxy's life is affected by the environment in which it lives.
DATE
|
SPEAKER
|
TITLE
|
21st January |
Dr. Ed Copeland |
LHC and the Early Universe |
18th February |
Dr. Meghan Gray |
The Violent Lives of Galaxies |
18th March |
Dr. Anne Green |
WIMP Hunting: The Search for Dark Matter
|
22nd April |
Dr. Tony Padilla |
Parallel Worlds |
20th May |
Dr. June McCombie |
The Chemistry of Space
|
17th June |
Dr. Frazer Pearce |
Global Warming |
22nd July |
Graeme Candlish
|
Black Holes
|
19th August |
Fernando Buitrago
|
History of Space Exploration: Looking for New Horizons
|
The 2009 Schedule:
DATE
|
SPEAKER
|
TITLE
|
20th May |
Dr. Sebastien Foucaud |
Scales of the Universe |
18th June |
Dr. Frazer Pearce |
Exoplanets: The Search for Other Earths |
23rd July |
Mark Hammonds |
Astrobiology: Life on Other Worlds
|
20th August |
Dr. Amanda Bauer |
A Long Time Ago in Galaxies Far, Far Away |
24th September |
Dr. Boris Haeussler |
From Big Bang to... a Short History of the Universe |
22nd October |
Asa Bluck |
Our Never-Ending Universe: What Caused the Big Bang? |
26th November |
Yara Jaffe |
The Fate of Our Sun and Other Stars |
17th December |
Keith Smith |
Nebulae: The Most Beautiful Objects in Astronomy (Chemistry X1) |
For more information, please contact: Amanda Bauer (amanda.bauer [at] nottingham.ac.uk)
Previous Lectures:
Nebulae: The Most Beautiful Objects in Astronomy
Keith Smith
Thursday, 17th December
6-7 pm
ABSTRACT: Some of the most spectacular images ever taken are of the astronomical objects known as nebulae. But what are these mysterious objects? I will take you on a tour of the night sky to find out, starting from the naked eye and the first ever observation of a nebula with a telescope. On the way, we will discover the various different types of nebulae and I will describe some of the processes that drive these vast assemblies of interstellar gas and dust. If nothing else, it should be spectacular!
The Fate of Our Sun and Other Stars
Yara Jaffe
Thursday, 26th November
ABSTRACT: The sun is just one of the hundreds of billions of stars that live in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Not only does it represent a typical star but it is arguably the most important one, since it is the closest star to Earth and largely responsible for our existence! I will start by reviewing our sun: how it works, why it burns, and what the eventual fates of our sun and solar system will be. Then I will open the scope and take you on a tour of the life cycles of the different types of stars that inhabit our Universe. From newborn stars, to dead stars, to the remnants of supernovae explosions and black holes.
Our Never-Ending Universe: What Caused the Big Bang?
Asa Bluck
Thursday, 22nd October
ABSTRACT: I will take you on a tour through some of the most exciting and controversial theories of the early 21st Century. We will stop in to re-examine the evidence for the Big Bang theory, noting that it has been tested thoroughly from 1 second after the origin of the Universe to the present. The questions are: what happens next? And what happened within that fateful instant? Contemporary theoretical physics is divide between two very different pictures of the Universe, Inflation and Ekpyrosis. The first leads us to believe in a Multiverse filled with infinite Universes, our own being the way it is largely due to pure chance. The second requires only one Universe, set to be this way by deep physical laws, but the Big Bang was not the beginning! In this model, time is infinite both into the future and past, but to achieve this view we need more dimensions, 7 more to be precise! I will talk about the new generation of astronomical and particle experiments that may distinguish between these ideas of our Universe, and may even be able to offer a tentative answer to that most enduring of questions: What happened before the Big Bang?
From Big Bang to... a Short History of the Universe
Dr. Boris Haeussler
Thursday, 24th September
ABSTRACT: Scientists have both observational and theoretical evidence that the Big Bang occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. But what happened afterwards? How did the Universe become the diverse place it is today? From the formation of the very first particles to the formation of stars, galaxies and planets, I will highlight some important events that followed the Big Bang according to particle physics and astronomy! I will also speculate about what might happen to our Universe in the near and far future.
A Long Time Ago in Galaxies Far, Far Away
Dr. Amanda Bauer
Thursday, 20th August
ABSTRACT: We live in the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies that exist in our Universe. During this lecture, I will describe our Galaxy, how we find other galaxies, properties of the diverse variety of galaxies that exist, and how galaxies change over time. To conclude, I will show some techniques used to understand how galaxies evolve over time.
Astrobiology: Life on Other Worlds
Mark Hammonds
Thursday, 23rd July
ABSTRACT: Even after 50 years of research, all of our questions about alien life remain unanswered. Despite this, the search continues unabated. Far from looking for ‘little green men,’ astrobiology is the study of how and where we might find life in the universe. In this talk, I will describe the kinds of environments where life could develop and survive, and where those environments might exist on other planets and moons in our Solar System. Finally, I'll explain some of the ways we hope to find life on planets around other stars.
Exoplanets: The Search for Other Earths
Dr. Frazer Pearce
Thursday, June 18th
ABSTRACT: As of April 2009, astronomers have discovered 228 planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. After a brief recap of our solar System I will review the four methods used to make these discoveries. So far no Earth-like planets have been found and I will explain the reason for this and the progress being made towards making such a discovery.
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