UC Berkeley Astronomy Night

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Event info:

7:00pm-8:00pm - Public Lecture: "How is it to live with a star?" by Wynn Jacobson-Galán

8:00pm-9:30pm - Stargazing on Campbell Hall's rooftop (weather dependent)

The lecture will be held in lecture hall 1 of Physics North on the UC Berkeley campus (the building is findable on Google Maps; see the attached image for a picture of the building's north-facing entrance, which you should enter to find the lecture hall). No reservations or RSVPs are required. Doors open at 6:45pm and the lecture will be first come, first serve.

Talk summary: Have you ever wondered what the most massive stars in our universe do right before they die? Well so do I! In this talk, I will discuss the violent fates of massive stars called red supergiants (same star type as Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation) and how we can use telescopes around the world to understand their final moments before explosion. Additionally, I will present the first ever direct observations of a red supergiant tumultuously ejecting stellar material and then exploding as a brilliant supernova, the light of which being so powerful that it can outshine its entire host galaxy.

Speaker bio: Wynn is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow working on supernova progenitor systems and transient astronomy. Fascinated by the final moments of a star’s life before death, Wynn's research focuses on winding back the cosmic clock to understand how certain stars produce the various supernovae observed today. Wynn currently works with Prof. Raffaella Margutti on combining multi-wavelength observations (radio to X-ray) of a variety of supernova types to create a complete picture of the final stages of stellar instability and mass-loss before explosion. As an undergraduate, Wynn worked at UC Santa Cruz on thermonuclear transients of all varieties under the guidance of Prof. Ryan Foley.