
Past Colloquia
Resolving to Resolve (or Re-solve?) Issues in Galaxy Formation with Resolved Data Abstract:
Cody Hall,
Adam Muzzin, York University
March 02, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Over the last decade we have made staggering progress measuring the mass growth and star formation rates of the galaxy population out to z ~ 10. Although we now know when galaxies form their stars and grow their black holes, the how, where and why…
What have we learned from gravitational wave detections?
Zoom
Jess McIver, University of British Columbia
February 23, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
In less than five years, the field of gravitational wave astronomy has grown from a groundbreaking first discovery to revealing new populations of stellar remnants through distant cosmic collisions. I’ll summarize recent results from LIGO-Virgo and their wide-reaching implications, give an overview of the instrumentation…
A Golden Age of Asteroseismology with Kepler and TESS
Zoom
Prof. Tim Bedding, University of Sydney
February 16, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Asteroseismology uses the natural oscillation modes of stars to study their interiors. The wonderfully precise measurements by NASA’s Kepler and TESS missions are ideal data sources for the technique. These space telescopes have been monitoring the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars, with the…
Cosmic dawn through the eye of space telescopes
Zoom
Michele Trenti, University of Melbourne
February 09, 2022
4:00pm - 5:00pm
During the last decade, the synergy between space-based infrared observations and theoretical/numerical modeling transformed our view of galaxy formation at cosmic dawn, and progress is expected to accelerate with next generation facilities. I will review the status of the field, in particular recent Hubble WFC3…
65 years after Sputnik: A critical juncture in humanity’s use of space
Zoom
Fred Lamb, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
February 02, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Abstract: Near-Earth space has become increasingly valuable and its use has grown enormously in recent years. This is having a dramatic impact on the space environment, which is very vulnerable and can easily be ruined by irresponsible behavior or a small number of destructive actions…
Lonely Planets – direct imaging discoveries of gas giant exoplanets with the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey
Zoom
Prof. Matthew Kenworthy, Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands
January 26, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Abstract: We have indirectly detected thousands of planets beyond our Solar System through the effect they have on their parent stars, either by the reflex motion of their orbit or when the planet’s orbit causes the planet to transit the disk of the star. For…
Cosmic gas flows in the circumgalactic medium
Zoom
Freeke van de Voort, Cardiff University
January 19, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Galaxies are intimately connected to the environments they live in. The haloes around them contain the gas reservoir from which the galaxies grow, while galactic outflows heat and enrich this ‘circumgalactic medium’ (CGM). Using ‘zoom-in’ cosmological, magnetohydrodynamical simulations, I will discuss the physical and observable properties of the gas around…
Inside the magnetic tunnel: How radio maps reveal the structure of our Milky Way’s magnetic field
Zoom
Jennifer West, University of Toronto
January 12, 2022
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Our view of the sky is a complicated superposition of objects that are both near and far. Disentangling this information is challenging, but essential to a complete understanding of our Galaxy, and the Universe. In this talk, I will discuss the brightest, large-scale, diffuse, polarized…
Colloquium with Gwendolyn Eadie and Suresh Sivanandam
Zoom
December 15, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Globular Cluster Systems and Their Relationship to Galaxy Stellar Mass – by Gwendolyn Eadie Abstract: All galaxies with large stellar mass appear to have a globular cluster (GC) population, but the same cannot be said of all galaxies with small stellar mass. At the…
Dragonfly: What it is, why it works, latest news, and plans for the future
Zoom
Roberto Abraham, University of Toronto
December 08, 2021
2:00 pm - 3:00pm
Abstract: I will describe the operating principles behind mosaic telescopes and describe how the Dragonfly Telephoto Array is an implementation of these ideas. New results on stellar halos and on galaxies lacking dark matter will be shown. Finally, I will describe progress being made on turning Dragonfly into an…