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Red and Brown Dwarfs: Understanding Our Smallest and Closest Stellar Neighbors

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Serge Dieterich of the Space Telescope Science Institute

The majority of stars in our galaxy are smaller than our sun and some have diameters as small as Saturn’s. Many small red dwarfs are among the closest stars to our solar system, but are quite faint, making them harder to study. Both as individual objects and as a population, small stars have intriguing characteristics, some with distinct implications for what life on their planets could be like. It is also important to consider what properties are necessary for a body to be considered a star and how small stars are different from their lower mass cousins, the substellar brown dwarfs.

Host: Dr. Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute

Recorded live on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Unveiling the Cosmos: Key Inventions Behind the Modern Telescope

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Unveiling the Cosmos: Key Inventions Behind the Modern Telescope
Sarah Kendrew of the European Space Agency/STScI

The astronomical telescope is a relatively recent invention in the ancient science of stargazing. Over the past 400 years, generation after generation of technology has transformed telescopes from passive observing tools to complex, highly automated workhorses of science. This astounding increase in sophistication has brought forth a golden age of astronomical discovery and ever-new insights into the nature of the universe and our place within it. Join Dr. Sarah Kendrew for an illustrated guide to the technological inventions that enabled this cosmic transformation.

Host: Dr. Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute

Recorded live on Tuesday, November 5, 2019, at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Zoom Into the Triangulum Galaxy (M33)

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Fly across the local galactic neighborhood to the Triangulum galaxy (M33), a smaller spiral than our Milky Way galaxy. Zoom in first on one of M33’s bright regions of star birth, nebula NGC 604, glowing with hot ionized hydrogen gas. The remarkable ability of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to resolve millions of individual stars is on display in this pan across M33’s dense star field.

Read the press release: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2019/news-2019-01.html

Credits: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Hubble Timelapse of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

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This is a time-lapse sequence compressing Hubble Space Telescope observations of Comet 2I/Borisov, spanning a seven-hour period. As the second known interstellar object to enter our solar system, the comet is moving along at a breakneck speed of 110,000 miles per hour. To photograph the comet Hubble has to track it, like a photographer tracking a racetrack horse. Therefore, background stars are streaked in the exposure frames. An artificial satellite also crosses the field of view. Hubble reveals a central concentration of dust around an unseen solid icy nucleus. Comet 2I/Borisov is only the second such interstellar object known to have passed through the solar system. In 2017, the first identified interstellar visitor, an object dubbed ‘Oumuamua, swung within 24 million miles of the Sun before racing out of the solar system.

Read the press release: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2019/news-2019-53

Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)

Black Holes and Gravitational Waves

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Emanuele Berti of Johns Hopkins University

Black holes hold the key to some of the pressing mysteries in modern science. Whether in isolation or in binary systems, they are excellent laboratories to probe high-energy physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity. The detection of gravitational waves from binary mergers marked the dawn of a new era in astronomy, and planned space-based detectors will open a new observational window at low frequencies. Gravitational waves from compact binaries carry important information on their astrophysical formation mechanisms, and on the evolution of the universe as a whole. Join us for a discussion about how gravitational-wave detectors can not only advance our understanding of black hole formation and growth, but also search for potential “smoking guns” of new physics.

Host: Dr. Frank Summers of the Space Telescope Science Institute

Recorded live on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Hubble Legacy Field – Zoom Out

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This video begins with a view of the thousands of galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and slowly zooms out to reveal the larger Hubble Legacy Field, containing 265,000 galaxies. The Hubble Legacy Field combines 16 years’ worth of Hubble observations into a single image that represents the largest and most comprehensive “history book” of galaxies ever made. They stretch back through 13.3 billion years of time to just 500 million years after the universe’s birth in the big bang.

Read the news release: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2019/news-2019-17.html

Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), and G. Bacon (STScI)