Tom Abel, Director, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University
What was the first thing in the Universe? A black hole or a star? How did it form? Even our biggest and best telescopes cannot tell us. Direct calculation with supercomputers, however, can. The first luminous objects in the Universe were very massive stars shining one million times as brightly as our sun. They died quickly and seeded the cosmos with the chemical elements necessary for life. One star at a time, galaxies started to assemble just one hundred million years after the Big Bang, and they are still growing now. Join Dr. Abel in a fascinating journey through the early universe as he uses the latest computer animations of early star formation, supernovae explosions, and the buildup of the first galaxies. The calculations combine the physics of dark matter, of atoms and molecules, the expansion of the Universe, chemistry, and gas dynamics to make remarkable predictions of our past.
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The Benjamin Dean lecture series brings the world's leading experts in astronomy, astrophysics, and more to the Academy's Morrison Planetarium.