Past Colloquia
The Chemistry of Planet Formation
Cody Hall
Karin Oberg (Harvard)
May 23, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
In the cold and dense stages of star and planet formation, volatile molecules condense out on interstellar grains forming icy mantles. The physics and chemistry of these ices may have a direct impact on planet formation efficiencies and planet bulk compositions. Ice chemistry is also…
Tales from the Zooniverse: Science with a million collaborators
Cody Hall
Chris Lintott (Oxford)
May 16, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most successful scientific crowdsourcing platform, engaging more than 800,000 volunteers in tasks including classifying galaxies, discovering planets and mapping star formation in the Milky Way. This talk will present highlights from the last six years, including the serendipitous…
Eruptions, disruptions and (repeated) explosions: massive stars at the end of their life: The role of central engines and sustained mass-loss
Cody Hall
Raffaela Margutti (CfA)
May 09, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Stellar explosions are at the intersection of several critical areas of modern Astronomy: as probes of the early Universe, as electromagnetic signposts of gravitational wave and neutrino emitters, as laboratories for extreme physics. In this talk I present the recent results from my multi-wavelength effort…
Asteroseismology and Exoplanets: A Kepler Success Story
Cody Hall
Daniel Huber (NASA Ames/Oak Ridge)
May 02, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Asteroseismology – the study of stellar oscillations – is a powerful observational tool to probe the structure and evolution of stars. In addition to the large number of newly discovered exoplanets, the Kepler space telescope has revolutionized asteroseismology by detecting oscillations in thousands of stars…
Testing general relativity with binary pulsars: a whole new game
Cody Hall
Paulo Freire (Max Planck - Bonn)
April 25, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
In this talk I will describe the current renaissance of tests of gravity theories with binary pulsars. I start by describing the classic radiative test of general relativity using the Hulse-Taylor pulsar and the (now) far superior tests done in the double pulsar system. I…
New Probes of Quasar Winds: Multi-Year Variability, Redshifted Troughs, and Hard X-ray Spectroscopy of Broad Absorption Line Quasars
Cody Hall
Niel Brandt (Penn State)
April 11, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Winds are key parts of quasar nuclear environments, assisting mass accretion and perhaps providing feedback into typical massive galaxies. They are most directly observed via prominent absorption in the UV (e.g., Broad Absorption Lines: BALs) and X-ray bands. I will discuss results coming from three…
Time domain science with the FLOYDS robotic spectrographs
Cody Hall
David Sand (Taxas Tech)
April 04, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
I will discuss the twin FLOYDS robotic spectrographs, operating at the 2m Faulkes Telescopes North and South as part of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. The FLOYDS instruments were designed with supernova classification and monitoring in mind, with a very large wavelength range…
Dark Energy, Inflation and Neutrino Physics Imprinted on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
Cody Hall
Suzanne Staggs (Princeton)
March 28, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) probes the origin, growth and dynamics of structure in our universe in diverse ways. Recent events highlight that polarization anisotropy in the CMB encodes new information, including reports of a possible detection of the signature of inflation along with first…
The theories of everything, from an astronomer’s perspective
Cody Hall
David Hogg (NYU)
March 14, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
Enormous projects in astronomy are creating enormous data sets and creating enormous data analysis challenges; indeed there are several areas of astrophysics in which we can think about truly comprehensive data sets that could, for example, measure the amplitude of every large-scale structure mode (above…
Following the Trail of Water in Star and Planet Formation
Cody Hall
Edwin Bergin (Michigan)
March 07, 2014
14:00 - 15:00
In this talk I outline new advances in our understanding of the formation and transport of water from clouds to disks, planetesimals, and planets. This is based in large part on new observational results from the Spitzer and Herschel Space Observatories encompassing the entire star/planet…