December 4, 2020 7-9PM

Event Type: Lecture and Stargazing
Title: Big Questions, Small Telescopes, and Fast Astronomy
Lecturer: Vikram Ravi
Position: Assistant Professor
Institution: Caltech
Abstract:
What would the sky look like if your eyes could see in radio waves? You would see the glow of cosmic rays spiraling in the magnetic field of the Milky Way, the sputter of relativistic jets expelled by supermassive black holes, and behind everything the faint echo of radiation from the dawn of the Universe. But if you blink, you may miss one of the most exciting phenomena in astronomy today: fast radio bursts from distant galaxies. At the Owens Valley Radio Observatory in eastern California, Caltech is building arrays of radio telescopes to discover these bursts and pinpoint their origins. In doing so we will address some of the most compelling questions in astronomy: What are the various types of neutron stars that can be formed? How is matter distributed throughout the Universe? What is the nature of dark matter?