Windows into space: from the Big Bang to now
About this Event
Talk Description
The Big Bang was 13.8 billion years ago. Since then, our patch of the universe has grown at least a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion times bigger – by 60 factors of 10. But how do we know? Join Professor Richard Easther as he shows that there are ‘windows’ into the evolving Universe: the first tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang when the seeds that grow into galaxies were planted, or a minute into the story when almost all the heavy hydrogen in the universe was made – a couple of grams of which is now in each of our bodies. He will discuss how we are extending our understanding of the evolving Universe, the involvement of New Zealand scientists on major projects such as the Vera Rubin Observatory survey and the LISA space mission, and the need to do more.
Bio
Dr Richard Easther is a Professor in the Department of Physics in the Faculty of Science. He grew up in New Zealand and graduated with his PhD from the University of Canterbury in 1994. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Waseda University in Japan and at Brown and Columbia Universities in the United States. He was a professor at Yale University from 2004 until the end of 2011 when he returned to New Zealand.
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