Guest Speaker: David Reitze, Executive Director, LIGO Laboratory, California Institute of TechnologyASTRONOMY TALK | The first direct detections of gravitational waves in late 2015 were made possible by a dedicated forty year quest to design, build, and operate LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. Why so long?? Dr. Reitze will discuss what makes gravitational waves so […]
Abraham Loeb, Chair of the Astronomy Department, Founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative, Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation Harvard UniversityASTRONOMY TALK | Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? Dr. Loeb will review the habitability of the universe throughout cosmic history […]
Dan David Prize Winner, Shrinivas Kulkarni California Institute of TechnologyCosmic explosions were first noted nearly two thousand years ago but only in the past hundred years have astronomers secured recognition of classes of explosions ranging from exotic eruptions to the death of stars (supernovae). The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and its successor, the Zwicky Transient Factory (ZTF) […]
