ASX Star Talk: The Gaia Satellite: Mapping the Milky Way in 3D

Speaker: Professor Jo Bovy, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Galactic Astrophysics in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Department of the University of Toronto
 
For hundreds of years, astronomers have been working to map the structure of the Universe and of the Milky Way, but this endeavor is hampered by the difficulty of measuring distances to celestial objects. Prof. Bovy will tell the story of how we have determined our place in the cosmos, from measuring the size of the solar system and the distance to nearby stars, to figuring out how far other galaxies are. He will then take us to the present day, giving an overview of the new Gaia satellite mission which is making us see the Milky Way with new eyes by measuring the distances to a billion stars in the Milky Way.

About the speaker
Professor Jo Bovy is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He graduated with a PhD in physics from New York University and went on to become a Bahcall fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He currently holds the Canada Research Char in Galactic Astrophysics at UofT, and is a member of the APOGEE-2 survey, which maps the dynamical and chemical patterns of Milky Way stars using near-infrared spectroscopy.
 
Telescope observing: 8:00–9:00pm on the 14th floor of McLennan Physical Laboratories (weather permitting)

Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Registration: Not required
Organized by: Astronomy & Space Exploration Society
Location: University of Toronto, Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories (LM 159), 80 St George St., Toronto, ON  M5S 3H6

http://asx.sa.utoronto.ca/2017/09/17/star-talk-the-gaia-satellite-mapping-the-milky-way-in-3d/
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