Astronomy on Tap: Seeing the Universe in X-Rays

We are very excited for our next event, which will take place on Monday, March 30th at Culture Café Leidse Lente at 20:00 CET!
This month, we will be focusing on the instruments that astronomers build to see the universe in X-rays! Jelle de Plaa will talk about how a new X-ray telescope can observe the hot gas around a black hole eating. Alex Bayerle will tell us about the process of building the mirror of an upcoming X-ray space observatory.
As always, there will be fun games with which you can test your knowledge and try to win cool science prizes!

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• Jelle de Plaa: “Beep! How to scan a Black Hole’s barcode”

Jelle de Plaa is an X-ray astrophysicist and scientific programmer at SRON in Leiden. His scientific interests include the composition and structure of clusters of galaxies. His talk will focus on what the surroundings of a black hole look like when it is eating. He will discuss how a new Japanese X-ray telescope can observe the unique "barcode" signature of the light, which helps us derive where the hot gas around a black hole is and measure its amazing speeds.

• Alex Bayerle: "The X-ray mirror of the NewAthena observatory"

Alex Bayerle is an experimental physicist working on the mirror of the NewAthena X-ray observatory. His talk will focus on the development and manufacturing of this 2.5 meter-diameter mirror, which is comprised of more than hundred thousand small mirror elements. At his company, cosine, his team combines these individual mirrors into modules that then will be integrated into the primary mirror, to obtain a lightweight but high-quality optic.

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Logistical information: We start at 20:00 sharp, so please arrive earlier to enter the venue, save a seat, and grab a drink. We are not planning to stream the event live but will be uploading a recording of the talks on our YouTube channel after the event.

Join us for an evening of astronomy and fun games where you can win cool science prizes! All ages and backgrounds are welcome!

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