February 23, 2018 7-9PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: Galaxies Aren't Great at Making Stars
Lecturer: Matt Orr
Position: Graduate Student
Institution: Caltech
Abstract: For nearly 100 years, we have known about the existence of galaxies other than our own Milky Way, but only since the late ‘50s have we known about the rate of star formation in our own galaxy. Only since the late ‘80s have we had any idea of how well those other galaxies produced stars. It turns out galaxies are terrible at their only job: making stars. They are about 50 times worse at star formation than we might expect, why? Feedback from hot young stars, violent stellar explosions, and how cold-ish gas behaves in galaxies give us some clues.