Special Event:

AstroTour Collaboration with the Simons Observatory!

July 23, 2026
20:00 EDT

Room 103, McLennan Physical Laboratories, 255 Huron St
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

More Details


Credit: David Boettger

Event Format

Three talks from Simons Observatory researchers, each ~15 minutes, followed by a ~30 minute panel of field experts with public Q&A.
The panel Q&A session will consist of a mix of pre-submitted and in-person questions. Questions can be submitted via this form.
Post-talk activities include demonstrations, lab tours, and telescope observing opportunities.

Our speakers for the evening are Bernardita Ried Guachalla, Fiona McCarthy, and Alex Manduca.
We will also be joined by panelists Elle Shaw, Simon Biquard, Carmen Embil Villarga, and Tony Mroczkowski.

More information to follow soon!
About the Simons Observatory
the Simons Observatory Banner

About the Simons Observatory

the Simons Observatory Logo

High in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, in one of the highest and driest places on Earth, sits the Simons Observatory. This incredible facility uses a team of advanced telescopes to capture the oldest light in the cosmos: the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is the leftover glow from the Big Bang itself. By mapping this ancient radiation, the scientists in the Simons Observatory Collaboration are essentially looking back in time to the first moments of the universe. Their goal is to use this data to answer some of the biggest questions in science: How did the universe begin? What exactly is dark matter? What can ghost-like particles called neutrinos tell us about how the cosmos evolved into what we see today? How did galaxies form?

For more information on the Simons Observatory, please visit their website here.

About the Talks

About the Talks

Seeing the Invisible Universe: How We Explore Cosmic Origins

The universe is filled with ancient light left over from the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background. This faint glow is the oldest light we can observe, carrying a snapshot of the universe when it was only 380,000 years old. Tiny patterns in the CMB reveal the seeds of the galaxies and cosmic structures we see today. Using observations from experiments including Planck, Atacama Cosmology Telescope, and the new Simons Observatory, cosmologists are mapping these signals with extraordinary precision to investigate the origin, composition, and evolution of the universe. In this talk, I will explore how studying the oldest light in the cosmos allows us to probe invisible matter, trace cosmic history, and piece together the story of how our universe began.

Speaker
Bernardita Ried Guachalla

Bernardita Ried Guachalla (Ph.D. Stanford University) is a Chilean astrophysicist whose research explores the origin and evolution of the universe through observations of the cosmic microwave background. She will soon begin a postdoctoral position at University of Cambridge, using data from the Simons Observatory to test cosmological models and study cosmic structure. Beyond research, she is also an advocate for the preservation of dark skies and public engagement with astronomy.

Science from the Simons Observatory

Simons Observatory is observing the cosmic microwave background over a range of scales and has a range of diverse science goals. I will focus on some of these exciting goals: measuring a new pattern in the polarization of light from the very first moment of the Universe, and learning about the properties of dark matter — the mysterious material that seems to make up a significant chunk of our Universe — by making a map of all of the matter in the Universe.

Speaker
Fiona McCarthy

Fiona McCarthy is an observational cosmologist working at Cambridge University. She mostly works on combinations of early-Universe data with late Universe data in order to light up the late Universe with the light that is behind everything: the cosmic microwave background. She has previously been a research fellow in the Centre for Computational Astrophysics in New York City, and she received her PhD in physics and astronomy from Perimeter Institute/University of Waterloo. Her undergraduate degree was in Theoretical Physics from Trinity College Dublin. Outside of research, she likes cycling and reading fiction (among other things!).

The Simons Observatory: How to Photograph Invisible Light

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new set of state-of-the-art cosmology telescopes built to map the millimeter-wave sky with unprecedented sensitivity. Here we present an overview of the marvelous instrumentation SO uses to make ground-breaking discoveries in cosmology.

Speaker
Alex Manduca

Alex is a PhD candidate in Physics & Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses on designing, building, and deploying instrumentation for cosmology telescopes like the ground-based Simons Observatory and the balloon-borne Terahertz Intensity Mapper.