Most of the subjects we study in college deal with Earth-bound topics and ideas. Astronomy expands your horizons by dealing with the rest of the universe. In this general talk, I will take you on a journey from the Solar System to the Big Bang, describing how astronomers use the biggest telescopes in the world to map the structure of the universe. Along the way, we'll explore the properties of the Milky Way galaxy and learn about black holes, supernovae, and the origin of the chemical elements that make up our bodies.
Michael Strauss is currently Associate Chair of the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton. His interests include all aspects of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology, especially of massive digital surveys to study the large-scale distribution of galaxies to constrain cosmological parameters, the relationship between galaxy properties and their environment, and the nature and evolution of active galactic nuclei and quasars at large redshifts. He is involved in planning for the next generation of large surveys, including the Prime Focus Spectrograph on Subaru and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. He is recently co-author with Neil de Grasse Tyson and Richard Gott of the bestselling book Welcome to the Universe, which was based on their popular astronomy course at Princeton.
Cookies and Coffee: 4:00 pm