Free Astronomy Public Lectures

Presented by Anna Sippel on 19th April 2013.

Stars don't shine forever - and especially very massive stars don't live very long before ending their lives as neutron stars or black holes. In this lecture we will focus on the endpoints of the evolution of such massive stars and how a black hole can be formed during a stellar explosion called supernova. We will discuss how black holes of different sizes can be detected under certain circumstances, and implications for theories that stellar-mass black holes could be the seeds of supermassive black holes we find at the centres of galaxies like our Milky Way.

Presented by Assoc. Prof. Sarah Maddison on 22nd March 2013.

When we look up into the night sky, almost all the light we see comes from stars: single stars, stellar clusters, and even giant ensembles of stars that make up galaxies. How and where do stars form? How and why do they evolve? And what is the fate of stars? In this talk we will go on a journey through the life of star, from their birth to death, and learn about the important role that stellar evolution plays in both galaxies and life.

Presented by Assoc. Prof. Sarah Maddison on 22nd March 2013.

When we look up into the night sky, almost all the light we see comes from stars: single stars, stellar clusters, and even giant ensembles of stars that make up galaxies. How and where do stars form? How and why do they evolve? And what is the fate of stars? In this talk we will go on a journey through the life of star, from their birth to death, and learn about the important role that stellar evolution plays in both galaxies and life.

Presented by Pierluigi Cerulo and Nicola Pastorello on 15th February 2013.

As part of a 14 billion years old expanding universe, we are able to directly experience only a tiny part of its history. In order to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the universe, it is fundamental to study the properties of objects which are billions of light years away from us. In fact, the light coming from these galaxies travels at a finite speed, giving us a picture of how they were when the universe was much younger. However galaxies are complex systems that evolve as they form new stars and interact with each other. As galaxies become old they acquire an apparently featureless elliptical morphology that, despite its structural simplicity, encloses all the complexities involved in galaxy evolution. Likewise a collection of family portraits that tells about the human society at the time when the pictures were taken, the observation and the subsequent comparison of nearby and distant elliptical galaxies allow us to reconstruct the evolution of the universe. In this talk we will present some results from the ongoing research conducted at Swinburne on nearby and distant galaxies with the most powerful currently available telescopes such as Keck, Gemini and Hubble.

Presented by Pierluigi Cerulo and Nicola Pastorello on 15th February 2013.

As part of a 14 billion years old expanding universe, we are able to directly experience only a tiny part of its history. In order to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the universe, it is fundamental to study the properties of objects which are billions of light years away from us. In fact, the light coming from these galaxies travels at a finite speed, giving us a picture of how they were when the universe was much younger. However galaxies are complex systems that evolve as they form new stars and interact with each other. As galaxies become old they acquire an apparently featureless elliptical morphology that, despite its structural simplicity, encloses all the complexities involved in galaxy evolution. Likewise a collection of family portraits that tells about the human society at the time when the pictures were taken, the observation and the subsequent comparison of nearby and distant elliptical galaxies allow us to reconstruct the evolution of the universe. In this talk we will present some results from the ongoing research conducted at Swinburne on nearby and distant galaxies with the most powerful currently available telescopes such as Keck, Gemini and Hubble.

Presented by Dr Lee Spitler on 7th December 2012.

Through a visual journey, you will travel with an astronomer, Dr. Lee Spitler, on an observing trip to the remote 6.5-metre Baade Magellan Telescope. In the still Chilean night, you will collect astronomy data to hunt for galaxies billions of light years away from Earth. Learn about the trials and tribulations of a professional astronomer.

Presented by Dr Lee Spitler on 7th December 2012.

Through a visual journey, you will travel with an astronomer, Dr. Lee Spitler, on an observing trip to the remote 6.5-metre Baade Magellan Telescope. In the still Chilean night, you will collect astronomy data to hunt for galaxies billions of light years away from Earth. Learn about the trials and tribulations of a professional astronomer.

Presented by Dr. Rita Tojeiro on 23rd Nivember 2012.

Over the last few decades astronomers have made enormous leaps in charting the Universe around us. Now, with accurate positions for millions of galaxies, we are finally able to trace the Cosmic Web in which we live. But these cosmic maps do far more than simply catalogue the contents of our Universe - they can help us to understand its origin and evolution as well as its ultimate fate. Cosmologist Dr Rita Tojeiro takes us on a voyage to the furthest reaches of space and explains how astronomers are unlocking some of the fundamental secrets of the Universe.

Presented by Dr. Rita Tojeiro on 23rd Nivember 2012.

Over the last few decades astronomers have made enormous leaps in charting the Universe around us. Now, with accurate positions for millions of galaxies, we are finally able to trace the Cosmic Web in which we live. But these cosmic maps do far more than simply catalogue the contents of our Universe - they can help us to understand its origin and evolution as well as its ultimate fate. Cosmologist Dr Rita Tojeiro takes us on a voyage to the furthest reaches of space and explains how astronomers are unlocking some of the fundamental secrets of the Universe.

Presented by Prof. Richard de Grijs on 26th October 2012.

Studying galactic interactions is like sifting through the forensic evidence at a crime scene. Astronomers wade through the debris of a violent encounter, collecting clues so that they can reconstruct the celestial crime to determine when it happened. Take the case of Messier 82, a small, nearby galaxy that long ago bumped into its larger neighbour, Messier 81. When did this violent encounter occur? New infrared and visible-light pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal for the first time important details of large clusters of stars, which arose from the interaction. The talk focuses on the train wrecks resulting from galaxy collisions and the implications for us in the Milky Way.