Past Colloquia
Students Doing Astronomy Like Astronomers: Teaching Astronomy Through Observation and Modelling
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Pierre Chastenay, UQAM
January 15, 2020
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
How do young people learn science? What to do about their naïve conceptions? How can we better support them in learning scientific concepts? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this colloquium, which will focus more specifically on teaching basic astronomical…
Stellar systems at low radio frequencies: The discovery of radio exoplanets
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Joe Callingham, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
December 18, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
For more than thirty years, radio astronomers have searched for auroral emission from exoplanets. With LOFAR we have recently detected strong, highly circularly polarised low-frequency (144 MHz) radio emission associated with a M-dwarf – the expected signpost of such radiation. The star itself is quiescent,…
The Milky Way Laboratory
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Cara Battersby, University of Connecticut
December 11, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Our own Milky Way Galaxy is a powerful and relatively nearby laboratory in which to study the physical processes that occur throughout the Universe. From the organization of gas on galactic scales to the life cycle of gas and stars under varied environmental conditions, studies…
Numerical experiments on star formation: mass functions and star-forming core properties
Cody Hall, AB 107
Lee Hartmann, University of Michigan
November 13, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
I present results from a set of numerical simulations of star formation with a restricted set of physics designed to isolate and understand basic processes. Cloud simulations of star (sink) formation which develop a large dynamic range in mass beyond fragmentation limits and good number…
The Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey
Cody Hall, AB 107
Ting Li, Carnegie Observatories, Carnegie Institution for Science Pasadena
October 30, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
In this talk, I will present an ongoing spectroscopic program, the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5), which maps newly discovered stellar streams with the fiber-fed AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. S5 is the first systematic program pursuing a complete census of known streams in the Southern Hemisphere, providing a uniquely powerful sample for understanding the building…
Illuminating Diffuse Galaxies with New Generation Imaging Surveys
Cody Hall, AB 107
Johnny Greco, Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Ohio State University)
October 23, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
We are entering a new era for wide and deep optical surveys, which promises to extend our census of the galaxy population to lower surface brightnesses than has ever been possible over large areas of the sky. These surveys will uncover low surface brightness (LSB)…
Extragalactic Star Clusters and the Assembly Histories of Galaxies
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Jean Brodie. UC Santa Cruz
October 16, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
I will report on the latest results from the SLUGGS imaging and spectroscopic survey of early type galaxies whose overarching goal is to unravel the formation histories of galaxies using the numbers, spatial distributions, stellar populations and kinematics of globular clusters to infer fundamental properties…
From Birth to Chirp – Astrophysics of Massive Stars as Gravitational Wave Progenitors
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Selma E. de Mink, Harvard University / University of Amsterdam
October 09, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
`How did they form?’ is a question many asked when LIGO announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves originating from two surprisingly heavy stellar-mass black holes. With masses of about 30 solar masses each, they outweighed all of the known black holes known from…
The Inaugural Martin Lecture: The World in 2050 – and beyond
Isabel Bader Theatre, 140 Charles Street W
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS, FREng, FMedSci, HonFBA
September 30, 2019
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
With Keynote Speaker Professor Martin John Rees Our Earth has existed for 45 million centuries but this is the first time one species—ours—has the planet’s future in its hands. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence—if pursued and applied wisely—could empower us to boost…
The Advanced LIGO detectors in the era of multi-messenger astronomy
Cody Hall, AB 107, University of Toronto
Jess McIver
September 25, 2019
3:00 pm - 4:00pm
Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are currently in the middle of their third observing run; the first to feature open public event alerts. The LIGO-Virgo collaboration has issued 28 un-retracted candidate event alerts as of September 11th, 2019, potentially adding dozens more known compact object…