Science Briefing: Extreme Speeds in the Universe
Location
Virtual
Contact Information
About Event
In this edition of NASA’s Universe of Learning Science Briefings, we will learn about extreme speeds in the Universe, from the incomprehensibly rapid expansion of the Universe itself to high-speed galaxy jets and runaway stars.
Dr. Lindsay King will delve into the theory of "cosmic inflation": the very early Universe expanded by a ginormous amount during a tiny fraction of a second, explaining puzzles about observations of our Universe - and even predicting a myriad of other Universes!
Dr. Eileen Meyer will talk about the extremely hot and energetic plasma jets that are generated by supermassive black holes deep in the centers of galaxies, and how we can learn more about their nature by taking “movies” of them with telescopes like Hubble.
Dr. Kareem El-Badry will discuss the fastest stars in the Milky Way, and what astronomers think we can learn from them.
About the Series
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 was a member of the Science User Support and IRAC instrument support teams of the Spitzer Space Telescope from 2002 to 2021. He is currently involved in the formulation of the Roman Space Telescope’s Science Support Center at IPAC and in the IPAC Communications and Education team. His scientific interests include low surface brightness objects, and galaxy dynamics and interactions. -
Dr. Lindsay King is an astrophysicist and physics faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas. Working with her students and collaborators, she investigates the dark and luminous ingredients of the Universe. Her current research focuses on understanding fascinating objects: huge clusters of galaxies embedded in the cosmic web that underpins the Universe, and supermassive black holes that inhabit the hearts of galaxies. She is also excited to be in a collaboration preparing a multi-sensory public art installation, centered on the amazing images of the Pandora galaxy cluster as seen by James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes. Lindsay studied in the UK at Cambridge University and the University of Manchester, for undergraduate and graduate studies respectively. Prior to joining UT Dallas, she held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Cambridge University. -
Dr. Eileen Meyer is an observational astrophysicist and Professor of Physics at UMBC. She studies relativistic plasma jets from black holes using observations ranging from radio frequencies up to very high-energy gamma-rays. She is also interested in studying the polarization of light from astrophysical sources and in building small-scale but high-performance polarimeters for use with equipment like the 32" telescope housed at UMBC. -
Dr. Kareem El-Badry is an observational astronomer focusing on stars. He grew up in Oregon, received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and moved to Caltech in 2023 after doing postdoctoral research at Harvard.
Event Resources
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Slide Presentation PPT
12 MB -
Resources PDF
211 KB -
Presentation Transcript
80 KB -
Chat Transcript
61 KB