Physics Program Presents
Hunting the Brightest Galaxies in the Universe
Friday, February 24, 2017
Hegeman 107
12:00 pm EST/GMT-5
12:00 pm EST/GMT-5
James Lowenthal, Smith College
I’ll give an overview of observing at the 50-m Large Millimeter Telescope and will focus on the latest results on distant, dusty, massive starburst galaxies in the early universe. Studying distant galaxies lets us peer billions of years back in time, well over halfway back to the Big Bang, to learn how galaxies form and evolve. New infra-red and millimeter-wave images and spectra from the Planck and Herschel satellites and from the LMT have helped identify the most luminous galaxies yet known, thousands of times brighter than our own Milky Way, and churning gas into new stars at a furious rate. Many are also strongly gravitationally lensed, their images warped and amplified by intervening massive galaxies, which lets us see more detail on fainter galaxies than usual. Hubble Space Telescope’s sharp vision further enhances our view and can finally reveal what triggers such spectacular starburst activity. For more information, call 845-752-7302, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 12:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Location: Hegeman 107