1st Fall 2011 Astronomy Public Lecture

[Lancelot]

1st Astronomy Public Lecture at CCSF for Fall 2011

Date: September 26, 2011 [Monday]

Time: Noon - 1 PM

Place: MUB 140

Speaker: Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, Miller Fellow, Department of
Astronomy, UC Berkeley

URL: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~cgiguere/Home.html

Title: From the Big Bang to Stars, Galaxies, and Black Holes

Abstract: When we look at the sky today, we see a rich Universe full
of complex and
beautiful structures, such as stars, planets, and galaxies. At the
same
time, we now know that the Universe started 14 billion years ago in
the
Big Bang. Immediately after the Big Bang, the Universe was very
different
than it is today, consisting instead of a nearly uniform, extremely
hot
plasma.

How did we get here? In this talk, I will outline how gravity shaped
the
large-scale structure of the Universe following the Big Bang, with an
emphasis on how we know. I will then describe our basic theory of
galaxy
formation, and conclude with an overview of some of the exciting
research
frontiers in astrophysics.