Events at Physics |
Events on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
- Last Day of Class
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- The cosmic history of supermassive black holes
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Amy Barger, UW Department of Astonomy
- Abstract: The early universe was dominated by a small number of giant galaxies containing colossal black holes and prodigious bursts of star formation. More recently, the creation of stars and the accretion of material into black holes has been taking place in a large number of medium-size and small galaxies. I will present observations made at many different wavelengths that show this vast downsizing of cosmic activity.
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Advances in Galactic Cartography
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 3425 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Dr. Robert Benjamin, UW- Whitewater
- Abstract: The Milky Way Galaxy is one of the few galaxies, and the only edge-on spiral galaxy that can be resolved in detail. But it has been a decades-long slog to try to determine its structure and ascertain how it would look to an outside observer. Although great progress has been made in understanding the Galactic bar and central molecular zone in the last few decades, a reliable understanding of the spiral structure has eluded us for a long time. For several reasons, that is about to change. I review these advances in Galactic cartography, with an emphasis on mapping of the Galactic stellar disk and bar with a standard candle using data from GLIMPSE, 2MASS, and UKIDSS.
- Host: Richard Townsend