Science Briefing: Cosmic Wrecks
Location
Virtual
Contact Information
About Event
In this edition of NASA’s Universe of Learning Science Briefings, we will learn about the largest-scale collisions in the universe. These collisions take place at the scales of comets/asteroids and planets, between individual stars, and up to the scales of galaxies and galaxy clusters. We will learn about the consequences of these cosmic traffic wrecks that take place even in our own cosmic neighborhood, and how the various astronomical objects evolve as results of these catastrophic events.
Dr. Christine Chen will talk about multiple giant planetoid collisions in exoplanetary systems, using JWST observations of the young (approximately 20 million years old) planetary system Beta Pic as an example. These observations have recently revealed that this system has had multiple giant collisions occurring during the past couple hundred years.
Dr. Sanaea Cooper Rose will describe how stellar collisions in the centermost region of a galaxy give rise to unique stellar populations and drive extreme and destructive events.
Dr. Robert Scott Barrow will talk about the role of galaxy collisions and mergers for growing and evolving galaxies throughout cosmic time, how our own Milky Way galaxy fits into this picture, and the various strategies used to observe these extreme events.
The NASA’s Universe of Learning Science Briefings are professional learning telecons for the informal science education community, done in partnership with the NASA’s Museum & Informal Education Alliance, now found on NASA CONNECTS. These monthly thematic briefings highlight current NASA astrophysics explorations and discoveries from across the suite of NASA astrophysics missions. NASA scientists and engineers provide contemporary science results, and are able to respond to listener questions during the telecon. NASA-developed education and outreach resources, matched to the monthly theme, are included in every briefing.
In order to participate in the telecon and ask questions of the scientists, please join NASA’s Museum & Informal Education Alliance.
Facilitator & Presenters
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Dr. Seppo Laine is a Staff Scientist at Caltech/IPAC. He is currently involved in the integration and testing of the proposal system in preparation for the launch of the Roman Space Telescope, and in the outreach and other activities of the Caltech/IPAC Communications and Education team. His scientific interests include low surface brightness objects, and galaxy dynamics and interactions. -
Dr. Christine Chen is an Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute where she has spent the majority of her time since 2008 supporting JWST, first as a MIRI and a NIRCam Instrument Scientist and more recently as the JWST Science Policy Lead. Dr. Chen’s research focuses on multi-wavelength observations of dust and gas in debris disks to constrain the formation and evolution of planetary systems. -
Dr. Sanaea Cooper Rose is a Lindheimer Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University, where she models interactions between stars and stellar remnants in dense star clusters. She enjoys leveraging simple physical models to build intuition about complex astrophysical environments. She completed her PhD in astronomy and astrophysics in 2023 at the University of California, Los Angeles and her B.A. in astrophysics at Wellesley College in 2017. -
Dr. Robert Scott Barrows is a Research Associate in the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research includes work on how galaxy mergers contribute to the co-evolution of galaxies and the massive black holes that they host. Dr. Barrows also enjoys competitive distance running and composing cinematic music.
Event Resources
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Slide Presentation PPT
81 MB -
Resources Document
215 KB -
Chat Transcript
130 KB