Watch Live Webcast: Witnessing Starbursts in the Early Universe

Recently, a multinational team of astronomers found that massive, “dusty” galaxies were churning out stars much earlier than previously believed – as early as one billion years after the Big Bang (read our article about the discovery here).

Today, March 29, 2013 at 19:00 UTC (12:00 p.m. PDT, 3:00 pm EDT) the Kavli Foundation is hosting a live Google+ Hangout: “Witnessing Starbursts in the Early Universe.” You’ll have the chance to ask your questions about starburst galaxies, the early Universe and the incredible research being conducted by the South Pole Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array(ALMA) in Chile. Watch live in the window below, or see the replay later if you miss it live.

Science writer Bruce Lieberman will moderate, and three members of the research team will participate:

John E. Carlstrom – Leader of the 10-meter South Pole Telescope project and Deputy Director of the University of Chicago’s Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.
Dan P. Marrone – Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona.
Joaquin D. Vieira – Leader of the multinational team studying the galaxies discovered by the South Pole Telescope, Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and member of Caltech’s Observational Cosmology Group.

Submit your questions before or during the webcast via Twitter (hashtag #KavliAstro) or by email to [email protected]

The webcast will also be available at: http://www.kavlifoundation.org/science-spotlights/spotlight-live-starbursts-and-early-universe

6 Replies to “Watch Live Webcast: Witnessing Starbursts in the Early Universe”

  1. Dark matter & dark energy. Both are so freaky. Dark energy is the freakiest of the 2. The LHC is looking into laser tech now. 14 billion $’s & counting for the Higgs-B.. Money well spent? That is very debatable depending who you talk to. As for Me? Well, .so much better than bombs. Take care.

    1. I’ll bet biology was considered “freaky” before cellular theory came along, and people could start to observe the biological constituents of life. Same for the most common entities out there, DE & DM, the universe used to be “freaky” (ask Zwicky on what kept galactic clusters together), but now we know,

      The Higgs field (still unknown if it is just a standard boson or several) is the missing piece of the standard particles. When quantum mechanics and particle physics came along, it was unknown if it was worth it. Then came semiconductors, using both (impurity doping with ion implanters), and it was worth it some decades after.

      But if you ask me, it has already been worth it. The completion of standard particles means that the vacuum, where every interaction happens unless expressly forbidden, is protected up to some 100’s of GeV. “No new physics”, laments the theorists, but they mean that higher energy sectors won’t appreciably affect the standard particle energy sector. Or the 11 significant digits of QED theory predictions wouldn’t be.

      Yes, there can be rare cosmic rays dissipating, or dark matter hitting a nuclei and contribute minisvcule heat to the room. But importantly the electrochemical sector of a few eV is protected by many orders of magnitude.

      Which means we can strike superstitions, there are no espers, no prayers, no homeopathy. Never more will such suggestions hunt our children, we can tell them they live in a world safe from snake oil salesmen and superstitious dilletants.

      Of course, the recent WMAP 9 year and Planck 2 year data releases tested that the universe is a result of a spontaneous process and that therefore there can be no magic in it (energetically closed). But the concurrent LHC 4 year data release is a nice confirmation! Nothing like independent observations telling us the facts.

      1. So well said Tor! I actually agree w/you buddy. Bring out the “woman, booze & what ever floats your boat, ..or sinks it! Today’s WMAP space-microwave study & the LHC would raise in the souls of both Penzias & Wilson a HUGE smile of happiness. Yes, the LHC has been so worth it to me. But like I stated before. It is debatable to some. I have a soft spot for scientific research in any field that helps man kind. Better than cash for bombs.

        Even though it is not my field. What confused me awhile back is the ‘impurity ion implants’. Someday I will get around looking into it more deeply. Again, very well said Tor.

  2. A very interesting if not disconcerting discussion! It almost seems as though using ‘normal consciousness’ does not allow us to fully understand the universe. That is to say… We as a species are presently limited due to our linear time reference frame and methods of understanding assumed causality. Of course stepping outside that reference frame and assumed causality creates a consciousness that is generally viewed, as loosely termed, crazy! Wild and crazy? It may well be that we will NEVER be able to completely understand the workings of our universe in ‘normal consciousness’. If that is so, is it enough to drive you CRAZY? What if we DID travel into realms of being where we saw the whole picture? Would there be a way to describe it? Probably naught…. then again, there are those who may have seen it all, but do we dare release them from the asylum?

    I vote yes… see what happens then.

    1. Causality is well tested. We can’t “step outside” of that.

      “Linear time” is nonsense. Time is a process, ask an oscillator, it is what it is. You can’t make it linear or non-linear.

      1. Ahem… as Einstein suggested, time is a covariance of gravity and relative velocity. There ARE altered states where time and causality seem to ‘melt’ away. The ‘dream state’ is the most frequently quoted. Schizophrenia also comes to mind here. As far as ‘stepping outside of causality’ goes, obviously you’ve never dabbled in psychedelics? Whether or naught one actually bends reality during a psychedelic interlude, is of course entirely subjective and therefore an opinion. Back to the asylum….

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