The Universe evolves over the course of billions of years—a timescale almost incomprehensible to humans. But there are some things in the night sky that change much faster. Spectacular explosions of massive stars dying, pulsing stars, and comets and asteroids drifting through our Solar System are all examples of changes in the sky that happen over the course of weeks, months, or years. These events which cause new sources of light to appear and disappear in the sky are called “astronomical transients.” In this talk, we will explore the history of astronomical transients: including observations of an exploding star by Chinese astronomers in 1054 CE, the search for comets over the centuries, and the first large-scale surveys of the sky using the Mt. Wilson and Palomar observatories. We will also cover the next-generation efforts to detect these events using Caltech’s very own Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and the brand-new Vera Rubin Observatory, which will reveal millions of new asteroids and supernovae across the sky in the coming years, and the essential role of Keck observatories to observe and characterize these spectacular cosmic fireworks.
Samantha (Sam) Rose
4th year PhD candidate in astronomy
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Samantha (Sam) Rose is a 4th year PhD candidate in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) advised by Professor Mansi Kasliwal. She spends her days (and many nights!) investigating the spectacular explosive deaths of stars and how their remnants go on to form the next generation of stars and planets. Using telescopes on Palomar Mountain, three (3) hours from Pasadena where Caltech is located, at Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Island of Hawai’i in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; and all the way in space from the James Webb Space Telescope, Sam attempts to understand how different stars end their lives and how they spend their afterlives. Sam was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, where she attended University of California at Berkeley as an undergraduate. Having fallen in love with the night sky after seeing the planet Saturn through a small telescope as a middle school student, Sam majored in physics and astrophysics and came to Caltech to pursue a PhD in 2022. When not doing astronomy, she enjoys reading cheesy science fiction novels, spending time at the beach, and reading cheesy science fiction at the beach.
