Past Colloquia
Protoplanets and Protoplanetary Disks
Cody Hall, AB 107
Josh Eisner (University of Arizona)
September 26, 2018
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Based on the existence of our solar system, and thousands of known exoplanets, we know that planets form. While theories have been developed to explain the demographics of these known planets, we have few direct constraints on the physical processes involved in planet formation. I…
Galaxy Cluster Evolution over the Past 10 Billion Years
Cody Hall, AB 107
Michael A. McDonald (MIT Kavli Institute)
September 19, 2018
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
In recent years, the number of known galaxy clusters at has grown dramatically thanks in large part to the success of surveys utilizing the Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect. In particular, surveys such as the South Pole Telescope 2500 deg^2 survey have discovered hundreds of new distant…
Dynamical modeling of MaNGA galaxies
Cody Hall, AB 107
Shude Mao (Tsinghua University)
August 08, 2018
15:00 - 16:00
The SDSS-IV MaNGA survey will eventually obtain integrated field unit data for ten thousand galaxies in the nearby universe; currently more than half of the data have already been collected. I will discuss how dynamical modeling of these galaxies can be used to study their…
Native Skywatchers – A Leading Model for Indigenous STEM – and Examples of More Inclusive Science
Cody Hall, AB 107
Annette Lee (St. Cloud State University)
April 25, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
Annette S. Lee is an astrophysicist, artist and the Director of the Native Skywatchers (NSW) research and programming initiative with three decades of experience in education as a teacher, university instructor, teacher educator, program administrator, professional visual artist, and researcher. The overarching goal of NSW…
Why We Need to Understand Stars to Find the Next Earth
Cody Hall, AB 107
Rachel Osten (Space Telescope Science Institute)
April 04, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
With the discovery of the first planet orbiting a normal star more than twenty years ago, and thousands of detected exoplanets since then, astronomy is firmly in the age of the exoplanet. The ultimate goal is to answer the question “Are we alone?”, with evidence…
Illuminating Gravitational Waves
Cody Hall, AB 107
Mansi Kasliwal (Caltech)
March 28, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
On August 17 2017, for the first time, an electromagnetic counterpart to gravitational waves was detected. Two neutron stars merged and lit up the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma-rays to the radio. The infrared signature vividly demonstrates that neutron star mergers are indeed the long-sought…
Imaging All the Sky All the Time in Search of Radio Exoplanets
Cody Hall, AB 107
Gregg Hallinan (Caltech)
March 21, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
All the magnetized planets in our solar system, including Earth, produce bright emission at low radio frequencies, predominantly originating in high magnetic latitudes and powered by auroral processes. It has long been speculated that similar radio emission may be detectable from exoplanets orbiting nearby stars,…
Observations of Circumgalactic, Inflowing Gas with CWI
Cody Hall, AB 107
Christopher Martin (Caltech)
March 14, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
I describe observations with the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager and the newly commissioned Keck Cosmic Web Imager of the Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM). We show ubiquitous Lyman alpha emission near 2<z<3 QSOs, a significant number of systems velocity shear and angular momentum, filamentary and disklike morphology,…
Detectable Changes in Astronomy
Cody Hall, AB 107
Federica Bianco (New York University)
March 07, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
The way we do science in general, and astronomy in particular, is changing rapidly. I will talk about the future of astronomy on the verge of the LSST survey. As the LSST Science Collaborations Coordinator, I will discuss how the whole science community is preparing…
Common envelope physics and the transients
Cody Hall, AB 107
Natasha Ivanova (University of Alberta)
February 28, 2018
14:00 - 15:00
Common-envelope events capture the imagination and are visually impressive, energetically noteworthy, and dramatically fate-defining episodes in the lives of close binary systems. During a common envelope event, two stars temporarily orbit within a shared envelope, and the episode ends with an exciting outburst, leaving behind…