Most galaxies enjoy the company of other galaxies and organize into various shapes known as the "cosmic web." Many of them also like to spin - creating beautiful disks of stars and gas. PhD student George Conidis examines our own galaxy, The Milky Way, and its friends to better understand the social habits of disk galaxies and how they spin. Chronicles of a Peculiar Universe is a series of talks presented in collaboration with York University's Faculty of Science.

One century following Einstein’s prediction of spacetime disturbances and gravitational waves, the laser-enabled special detectors LIGO achieved the most accurate measurement ever made by humans across science and engineering and revealed to us the gravitational-wave signals produced by the most powerful collisions of black holes in the universe.

From reading article comments online, many people seem to think that scientists are constantly discovering “water on Mars.” This talk summarizes of our current understanding of water in the Martian past and present, and the implications of that for the habitability of the Red Planet.

Perched on a ridge in the remote polar desert of Ellesmere Island sits an atmospheric research facility, the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL). Surrounded by vast, rugged, and beautiful Arctic scenery, a small team of Canadian scientists use sophisticated instruments at PEARL to measure and investigate a wide range of atmospheric science topics. From this strategic location, research is conducted to better understand climate change, ozone depletion chemistry, pollution transport, and the high Arctic atmosphere.

Get an up-close and personal take on the several Gravitational Waves discoveries that have changed science for the better. With the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015 and the recent observation of a binary neutron star, the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration and partners have broken records in physics, astronomy, and interferometry – with still more to come.

Have you ever looked up in the starry sky and felt small and insignificant compared to the vastness of the cosmos? What you will learn in this talk is that you are actually made of the exact same material as these sparky dots up there and essentially everything else in the universe. Stars produce the elements that compose everything you see – yourselves included – while they are born, live and die in the cosmic ocean. You are literally a living part of the universe, made out of stardust!

Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn will be discussing how to prepare and plan for a night of imaging with special consideration to location, time, weather and sky quality considerations. She will also be discussing how to interpret weather forecasts and use various websites, apps and desktop software in order to optimize your night out under the stars. Her talk will also be applicable to those who aren’t interesting in photography.

The Welsh Lectures in Physics have been held annually since 1975 in honour of H.L. Welsh, a distinguished former faculty member in the Physics Department. They are the major public event in the life of the Department of Physics and are intended to celebrate discoveries in physics and their broader impact.   They are intended to be broadly accessible to an audience drawn from across the university, other academic institutions and the interested public. The Welsh Lecturers for 2014 are:

A science-based variety show aimed at blending knowledge, music and comedy

Solar System Social is a space-themed speaker series that brings exciting ideas and research from the field of planetary science to the general public in the form of short, informative, and interesting talks that last about 20 minutes each.