Past Colloquia
New Opportunities with the Gemini Observatory
Cody Hall
Markus Kissler-Patig (Gemini)
September 18, 2013
15:00 - 16:00
Gemini Observatory’s director Markus Kissler-Patig will present an update of the facility and introduce some new opportunities for astronomers at Gemini. Gemini operates twin 8-m telescopes, one in Hawaii and the other in Chile. The departure of the UK from Gemini’s international partnership at the…
The Environmental Impact on Powerful Radio Galaxies
Cody Hall
Julie Banfield (CSIRO,Australia)
September 13, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
There are many various types of morphological properties of radio galaxies and it remains unclear as to what causes these differences. Do the intrinsic properties of the central engine (‘nature’) mold and shape the radio source? Do the properties of the surrounding medium of the…
Observing Luminous Infrared Galaxies at Low and High Redshift
Cody Hall
Lee Armus (IPAC/Caltech)
April 19, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) provided the first unbiased survey of the sky at mid and far-infrared wavelengths, giving us a comprehensive census of the infrared emission properties of galaxies in the local Universe. Luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), which emit a significant fraction of their…
Hold On To Your Volatiles – Modeling Evolution And Composition Of Small Icy Bodies
Cody Hall
Gal Sarid (Harvard)
April 11, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
The outer Solar System hosts a vast population of small icy bodies, considered to be primitive remnants from the planet formation epoch. Early thermal and collisional processes affected such planetesimals to varying degrees depending on the time scale and dynamics of early planet growth. Hence,…
The Formation of Galaxy Nuclei
Cody Hall
Anil Seth (Utah)
April 05, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
Compact, massive nuclear star clusters are found at the centers of most elliptical and spiral galaxies. They are among the densest stellar systems in the universe, and often coexist with massive black holes. The mass of both the black holes and nuclear star clusters correlates…
Formation and Retention of Planets in Disks
MP 203
Wladimir Lyra (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
April 05, 2013
11:00 - 12:00
The ill fate of the building blocks of planets in gaseous disks around young stars stands as one of the major unsolved problems in the theory of planet formation. Our current level of understanding indicates that solids in circumstellar disks migrate into the star or…
The case for stochastic orbital migration in proto-planetary disks and Saturn’s rings
MP 203
Hanno Rein (IAS/ Princeton)
March 28, 2013
13:00 - 14:00
Many of the 869 known extra-solar planets are in multi-planetary systems. These systems are the most interesting ones to study because they allow us to place tight constraints on planet formation. The protoplanetary disk in which planets form is turbulent and therefore stochastic forces are…
FIRE & Ice: The Discovery and Spectral Characteristics of Room-Temperature Brown Dwarfs
Cody Hall
Adam Burgasser (UCSD)
March 26, 2013
16:00 - 17:00
Our view of the immediate Solar Neighborhood has changed dramatically in the past decade with the discovery of an ever-growing population of cool, dim brown dwarfs. These objects, incapable of sustained hydrogen fusion, are intrinsically long-lived, time-variable objects, making them potential probes of (sub)stellar star…
Quasar and star formation feedback throughout the cosmic epochs
Cody Hall
Roberto Maiolino (Cambridge)
March 22, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
Over the entire life of the Universe only 4% of the baryons have been converted into stars, while gravitational collapse and gas cooling would predict that locally about 80% of the baryons should be in stars. Hence, rather than understanding how stars have formed throughout…
Unshrouding the Milky Way with the APOGEE Survey
Cody Hall
Jennifer Johnson (Ohio State)
March 15, 2013
14:00 - 15:00
Many questions of the formation and evolution of galaxies can be tested by observations of the closest galaxy: the Milky Way. We have now entered the era of large stellar surveys of the Milky Way and are starting to map the Galaxy as we have…