September 9, 2016 8-10PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: The Invisible Universe Revealed: From Glowing Dust to Spinning Stellar Corpses
Lecturer: Anna Ho
Position: Graduate Student
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
Your eyes are powerful: they can distinguish a vast range of colors, from reds to greens to purples. However, these "visible" colors are just a tiny fraction of the light in the universe. To reveal the rest, astronomers build telescopes with specialized detectors, like the Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope in space and the Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in New Mexico. These artificial “eyes” enable us to view previously invisible phenomena like interstellar dust and the spinning corpses of massive stars. In this talk, you will learn about some of the celestial objects and violent events that light up the universe in all its invisible colors, as well as the telescopes used to reveal them.