Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust: a search for the stolen starlight at 6pm

A view of the mountains and the Milky Way across the sky from left to right.
RAS November 2023 Public Talk - Prof Haley Gomes, Cardiff University
Credit
Sam Goodgame, Unsplash
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This is a free and open to the public online talk. We will resume our in person talks in December.

 

To register for the 6pm online only talk. 

To register for the 1pm online only talk. 

 

Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust: a search for the stolen starlight

Cosmic dust grains are usually a nuisance to astronomers because they block out star light, but dust is also the raw material out of which new stars and planets are born, and ultimately life itself. It is an important part of the Universe but astronomers are still not sure where all this dust is created. Using telescopes in space and on Earth in the last few years, we investigated whether titanic stellar explosions could be responsible for all the dusty mess in galaxies. It turns out that exploding stars can be efficient dust factories and could even be responsible for the very first cosmic dust in the universe. In this talk, I will show how the latest space technology is revealing a whole new dusty world.

 

Prof Haley Gomez speaking on a stage
Prof Haley Gomez, Cardiff University
Prof Haley Gomez

 

About our speaker

Haley Gomez (née Morgan) MBE, FRAS, FLSW is a Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University. She studies the formation and evolution of cosmic dust using space telescopes including the Herschel Space Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope. She has recently been appointed as the Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy in Cardiff. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honour’s. She gives regular public lectures and has been featured at the Royal Albert Hall and National Museum of Wales, as well as in the Sky at Night Magazine and Astronomy Now. She has worked with charities, the media and appeared on science podcasts including BBC's The Life Scientific with Jim Al-Khalili. She was a speaker at the 2015 TEDxCardiff, where she discussed the origins of life.

 

*This event is online only

 

 

 

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