On Thursday, May 10, 2012, Keck Observatory is hosting a live webcast of an astronomy talk by Dr. Brian Siana of the University of California at Riverside. The first galaxies had an extraordinary impact on the young universe. Their ultraviolet light destroyed nearly all of the atoms in the cosmos. This process, called reionization, had severe consequences for galaxies trying to form thereafter. Unfortunately, we have no idea how it happened. In galaxies today ultraviolet light cannot escape, so the first galaxies must have been very different from those we see today. Dr. Siana will describe the quest to detect these first galaxies and their impact on the early universe.
The webcast begins at 7 pm Hawaiian Time, 10 pm Pacific Time (5 am GMT, May 11) and will be streamed from the Kahilu Theatre in Waimea-Kamuela, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Watch in the window below, or click on the UStream link.
The live webcast will play in the box below beginning at 7 pm HST / 10 pm U.S. PST, or can be found via the Keck Observatory Facebook page.