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Education

Astrophysics: The New Astronomy

Presented by Carnegie Observatories | October 20, 2024 | 3 PM
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A large, face-on spiral galaxy. The core is radiating very brightly in white and bluish colours. Thin webs of dark gas cross the centre and most of the galaxy, following the twist of the galaxy. This gas continues out into a tidal tail at the upper-left, and another at the bottom. Small stars can be seen around the spiral galaxy, on a black background
The peculiar galaxy NGC 3256 takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This distorted galaxy is the wreckage of a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies which likely occurred 500 million years ago, and it is studded with clumps of young stars which were formed as gas and dust from the two galaxies collided. This image contains data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3. In contrast to the infrared-light image, this visible image lays out in detail the dark threads of dust and molecular gas that spin around the centres of the two merged galaxies. Hot, massive stars in the two nuclei shine brightly, giving a bluish colour to the core, even though the galaxy is more bright overall in infrared wavelengths. The image was originally released in 2018.

Fulcrum Arts HQ
544 N. Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91103

Free with RSVP

Astrophysics, dubbed the “new astronomy” at its inception in the late nineteenth century, blossomed when George Ellery Hale convinced Andrew Carnegie to invest in an observatory in the mountains above Pasadena. The discoveries that followed were some of the twentieth century’s most important.

In a public presentation at Fulcrum Arts HQ, Dr. Jeff Rich, an astronomer at the Carnegie Science Observatories, will explain how our fundamental understanding of the universe completely changed because of these discoveries, and how the field of astrophysics continues to evolve thanks to the work of Carnegie astronomers from 1904 to the present day.

Jeff Rich is an Astronomer at the Carnegie Science Observatories where he heads up the outreach and education programming. His research is focused on observations of nearby galaxy mergers to help us better understand how galaxies grow and change throughout cosmic time. Jeff is from Washington State, went to college at USC and carried out his graduate studies at the University of Hawai’i.

Presented as part of Fulcrum Festival 2024: Waves Upon Waves.